Opinion polls predict that voters are set to back the left-wing Labour Party over the incumbent Conservative government by a significant margin, a BBC tracker shows.

Lammy told an event during London Climate Action Week that he supports the green reforms of the global financial system that have been proposed by the leaders of Kenya, Barbados and the World Bank.

Clare Shakya, climate lead at The Nature Conservancy, a green group, told Climate Home that Lammy’s comments were “massively ambitious” and “exactly what the world needs to hear right now”.

But promises on climate finance to developing countries in the Labour Party manifesto are the same as the ruling Conservative Party. Lammy argued that “all across the world, a cost-of-living crisis is making it hard to make the case solely for taxpayers’ funds” to support climate action in developing nations.

The Conservatives and Labour have both pledged to restore the overseas aid target from 0.5% to 0.7% of gross national income when “fiscal circumstances allow”. Both have committed to providing £11.6 billion ($14.7bn) in international climate finance between 2021 and 2026.

Claudio Angelo, international policy coordinator for Brazil’s Climate Observatory, commended Lammy “for being so vocal about the need for the UK to step up” on climate multilateralism.

But, he added, the Labour politician “doesn’t seem to offer anything new on climate finance and now, with four months left until COP29, we desperately need a breakthrough”.

IEA calls for next national climate plans to target coal phase-down

At the COP29 climate summit in November, governments are due to agree on a new post-2025 goal for international climate finance. Developed and developing countries have been divided so far, with developing nations proposing targets of $1.1-$1.3 trillion a year but wealthy governments refusing to openly discuss figures until the issue of where the money will come from is addressed.

Outside the UN climate talks, a coalition led by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley – partly backed by the US, Germany and others – has been pushing for multilateral development banks to lend more money to green projects. Kenyan Prime Minister William Ruto has called for taxes on polluters to raise money for climate finance.

Lammy told a forum on climate politics, organised by think-tank E3G on Tuesday, that the global financial system’s rules “were set up in a different age, a different century – they don’t work today”. “We want to work with [World Bank president] Ajay Banga and others to bring about the changes that are required,” he added.

Angelo said he supports the need to shake up the system, but described Lammy’s references to reforming multilateral development banks while limiting public finance as “standard developed-country talking points”.

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Asked about the Labour manifesto promise to “audit” its relationship with China, Lammy said Labour would “engage appropriately” with the world’s biggest emitter on key policy areas, adding “there is no more important issue in so many ways than the climate issue.”

He praised the EU, US and Australia for their efforts to talk with China, and said a Labour government would “cooperate with China when we can”. The previous day, he told the India Global Forum that he would also work with India on climate change.

Li Shuo, director of the China climate hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington DC, told Climate Home that “the UK has been quite self-absorbed and quickly disappeared from the list of interlocutors with Beijing since COP26 in Glasgow”.

“The desire to restart engagement is a welcome development,” he added. “This is particularly true if the US election goes south. Much of the rest of the world will need to hold the fort.”

On domestic energy policy, Lammy reiterated Labour’s pledge not to issue any new licences for oil and gas production in the North Sea.

The party’s manifesto outlines further national climate policies, including decarbonising electricity by 2030 – five years earlier than the current government’s plans – by doubling onshore wind, tripling solar and quadrupling offshore wind.

(Reporting by Daisy Clague and Joe Lo; editing by Joe Lo and Megan Rowling)

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Beijing is aiming to reduce its energy intensity –  the amount of energy consumed per unit of its gross domestic product – by 2.5% in 2024, according to a government policy work plan published on Tuesday at the opening of the annual National People’s Congress.

The target falls short of the rate of reduction needed to hit a goal of slashing energy intensity by 13.5% in the five years to 2025, energy analysts noted.

China is already lagging way behind that goal. Energy intensity fell by only 2% between 2020 and 2023 as the country powered its economic growth with carbon-intensive sources like coal, recent analysis by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found.

‘Admitting defeat’

“China is effectively admitting its failure to fulfill the five-year target,” Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society think-tank, told Climate Home. “This year’s target is even more modest than the average rate of reduction needed, while they should be playing catch up.”

Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society and co-founder of CREA, said that China is “basically admitting defeat” with this “very important metric”.

“The [2.5%] target is completely inadequate to get China back on track towards its 2025 goals,” he added. “It is very alarming that the government is not articulating a plan on how they are going to hit an internationally-pledged target.”

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The energy intensity goal is one of the main climate commitments made by the Chinese government in its current five-year plan and is also referenced in the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC), submitted to the UN under the Paris Agreement.

China set the target in 2021, but a year later it watered down the rules when it stopped counting energy consumption from renewable sources. “It’s essentially a fossil-fuel intensity target now,” said Myllyvirta.

A similar goal of reducing China’s carbon intensity – CO2 emissions per unit of economic output – by 18% is also at serious risk of being missed unless emissions fall dramatically over the next two years.

Emission cuts vs growth

China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter and juggles its emissions-cutting targets with Beijing’s desire to boost economic growth and maintain energy security.

The Asia Society’s Li said this year’s government work plan “does not really prioritise climate and environmental issues in light of the difficult domestic economic conditions”.

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It does, however, indicate strong support for clean energy, saying the government will “further advance the energy revolution” and “strengthen the construction of large-scale wind power and photovoltaic bases”.

But it also says the government will continue to recognise the role of coal power in its energy system and “increase the exploration and development of oil and gas”, suggesting China is not yet planning to start transitioning away from fossil fuels, as countries agreed to do at Cop28 in December. 

Renewables and coal leader

The country is already both a global leader in renewable energy and a primary backer of coal power.

In 2023 it doubled its solar capacity after installing as many solar panels as the whole world had done in the previous year, according to the International Energy Agency. Wind power capacity also rose by 66% last year.

But it also has more than half of the coal-fired generating capacity operating globally. That is likely to increase as China has more coal power capacity under construction than the rest of the world combined, according to an analysis by the Global Energy Monitor.

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That is after Saudi Arabia, India and China opposed attempts to ensure the scientific body would provide its assessment in time for the next global stocktake, the UN’s scorecard of collective climate action, due in 2028, according to sources present at the IPCC talks in Istanbul, Turkiye, last week.

Following “fraught” discussions that ran all night Friday, governments postponed a final decision on the timeline until the next meeting scheduled in the summer.

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Swiss climate scientist Sonia Seneviratne, who is the vice chair of an IPCC working group, said she “was not totally surprised” to see opposition to the proposal.

“We know that some countries do not necessarily want climate policy to advance very fast and IPCC information will be critical for informing the global stocktake”, she added. “But I was surprised by the lack of willingness to even negotiate on these points”.

The findings of previous IPCC reports played a prominent role in informing the first global stocktake, which resulted in governments agreeing for the first time to begin “transitioning away from fossil fuels” at Cop28 last December.

Timeline disagreement

The IPCC met last week to decide the work programme for its seventh assessment cycle, which officially started in July 2023 with the election of its new chair Jim Skea.

Ahead of the talks, the UNFCCC officially requested that the scientific body align its activities with the timeline of the next global stocktake. The IPCC input would be “invaluable” for the scoring exercise, Simon Stiell, chief of the UN climate body, said.

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But sticking to a 2028 deadline would mean either fast-tracking its work or shortening the IPCC’s entire cycle from seven years down to five years. Small island nations, least developed countries and some rich countries favoured this option, sources told Climate Home.

But a group of governments, led by Saudi Arabia, India and China, argued the accelerated programme would force to complete the scientific process “in a hurry” and would not leave enough time for developing countries to review the output, according to sources.

Speed and quality

Mohamed Nasr, Egypt’s chief climate negotiator, told Climate Home that he was not opposed to the principle of IPCC producing reports in time for the global stocktake but only if “we are not rushing science to deliver in a short timeline”.

“The question is ‘can you provide the same level of quality in 2028 or not?’”, he added. “Otherwise, the credibility of the IPCC would come under question”.

The IPCC normally publishes its reports every five to seven years and three scientists involved in its activities told Climate Home it is entirely possible to conclude its next round of assessments by 2028.

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“Linking the assessment cycle to the global stocktake makes a lot of sense to me”, said Richard Klein, a senior researcher at SEI and a lead author of previous IPCC reports. “It is the gold standard of everything to do with climate science and the IPCC was explicitly set up to inform climate policy, including the UNFCCC’s processes”.

Eleventh-hour compromise

The issue caused major divisions between governments throughout the meeting, which “teetered on the brink of failure on Saturday morning”, according to a summary of discussions by the IISD’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin. The lack of consensus led to “IPCC Chair Jim Skea half-jokingly warning that the time to leave the venue was near and further consultations would shortly have to be held on the street”, the report added.

Negotiators huddle looking for an agreement on the final day of the IPCC meeting. Photo: IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou

Most critical discussions took place when many delegates, especially from vulnerable countries, had already left because of their inability to change complicated travel arrangements. Seneviratne said that was morally “questionable”.

Veteran US and Chinese climate envoys step down

Negotiators eventually struck a last minute compromise. The final agreement puts the IPCC’s bureau – an advisory group – in charge of proposing a timeline for the assessment reports that could be decided at the next meeting.

Seneviratne said that, while she would have wanted a “more explicit response” on this point, “the decision does not prevent the IPCC from delivering information in time for the global stocktake”.

But Klein argued the lack of a firm commitment leaves the process stuck in limbo. “There’s no guarantee that there will be agreement on the next meeting and, meanwhile, the working groups need to get started now. They don’t have the luxury of waiting until the next meeting”, he added.

No extra special reports

Egypt’s Nasr said he was satisfied with the meeting’s outcome: “It confirmed that reports will have the same level of comprehensiveness, will consider all literature and will allow for full engagement for developing countries”.

But he expressed disappointment over the absence of a special report on adaptation, which some African countries had asked for. Governments have instead only agreed to update technical guidelines first devised in 1994 to help countries measure climate impacts and adjust to them.

The IPCC will also produce a special report on climate change and cities, which had already been agreed on, and a methodology report on carbon removal, including carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The post Governments fail to agree timeline for climate science reports in fraught IPCC talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

After suffering health problems, 74-year-old Xie Zhenhua Chinese climate envoy resigned earlier this month and will be replaced by foreign ministry diplomat Liu Zhenmin.

The same week this news broke, 80-year-old John Kerry told US President Joe Biden that he would step down as climate envoy in the next few months. He will campaign for Biden to win the presidential election in November. His replacement is unknown.

With the European Union appointing a new top climate diplomat last year and holding elections in June, all three of the world’s biggest polluters will be led by relatively new faces at Cop29 in November.

US-China ties

Xie has led China’s climate diplomacy for most of the period since 2007 while Kerry was heavily involved in climate talks as Barack Obama’s foreign minister and Biden’s climate envoy.

The two have a close personal relationship, shown most recently by Xie bringing his grandchildren to Cop28 in Dubai to sing happy birthday to Kerry. Xie’s return from retirement in 2021 was widely interpreted as a response to Kerry’s appointment.

Xie Zhenhua is a veteran of UN climate talks (Pic: UN Photos)

They have attempted to keep US-China climate talks going despite wider geopolitical tensions, particularly over China’s relationship with Taiwan.

The two sides are now talking about cooperation on issues like methane, clean electricity and urban climate action. But the outcome of US elections later this year could scupper talks.

China’s climate lead

Xie was appointed vice chair of China’s top economic planning body in 2007 and put in charge of climate talks. He was in the post until 2020 when he briefly retired before being re-appointed in 2021.

Former US negotiator Todd Stern described him in 2019 as a  steadfast defender of Chinese interests who was likable, cared about climate change and wanted to get things done.

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Over his tenure, China has become more proactive about wanting to tackle climate change. It has set a net zero goal, established a carbon market, become a renewable energy leader and pledged to stop financing new coal power overseas – although it still plans to build many new coal plants.

Xie oversaw secret work to model different pathways for China to reach net zero emissions – models that eventually informed President Xi Jinping’s aim to reach carbon neutrality by 2060.

He suffered what Kerry called “something of a stroke” in January 2023 which prevented him from working and travelling abroad for much of this year, although he did lead China at Cop28 in Dubai.

The new boss

His replacement Liu previously worked for the United Nations as one of its second-highest ranking officials, focussing on economic and social affairs.

Before that, he was an ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and then China’s deputy foreign minister and worked on the Paris and Kyoto climate agreements.

Liu Zhenmin poses for his official United Nations portrait (Photos: United Nations)

One China climate watcher, who did not want to be named, told Climate Home that many experts wanted someone from the environment ministry appointed not someone like Liu from the foreign service.

“To oversimplify,” they said, the”[foreign ministry] approaches climate as a card in U.S.-China grand bargain” whereas the “environment [ministry] sees climate change as a real issue that needs to be solved”. The foreign ministry “is known to be conservative and inaccessible”, they added.

On the other hand, the source said that Liu was “probably the most familiar with climate issues in China’s foreign service”.

Chatham House analyst Bernice Lee said, “sure, he is not from the environment ministry but no doubt he will be a fast learner not just in substance but also the building of an international network”. She described him as a “diplomat”, adding “challenging times require someone with diplomatic skills”.

Big hitter gone

After rising up as a Vietnam war veteran, senator and failed presidential candidate, Kerry was appointed as Barack Obama’s secretary of state in 2013.

Kerry worked with Xie to agree on carbon-cutting deals between the two nations which helped land the Paris Agreement in 2015. He went on to sign it with his granddaughter on his lap the next year.

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Kerry left office when Donald Trump was elected in 2016. He came back into the fold immediately after the election of Joe Biden, who chose him as a presidential envoy on climate change. Kerry led the US delegation at Cop26, Cop27 and Cop28.

Jake Schmidt, from the Natural Resources Defence Council, said Kerry “helped rally the world around a commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, speed the growth of clean energy, and begin to mobilise resources to help the world’s most vulnerable nations cope with the consequences of the climate crisis”.

Kerry’s successor is unknown. His two deputies are Rick Duke and Sue Biniaz. If Donald Trump wins the presidential election in November, he is unlikely to appoint a climate envoy.

The post Veteran US and Chinese climate envoys step down appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a speech in Beijing today, the veteran negotiator said that “completely eliminating fossil energy is not realistic”, according to a translation provided by the Center for China and Globalization.

He said that renewable energy is dependent on the weather so “fossil fuels should serve as a flexible and back up energy source when technologies such as large-scale energy storage, electric power transmission, smart grids, microgrids are not yet fully mature”.

He added that the emissions which come from burning fossil fuels can be reduced with carbon capture and storage technology.

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This chimes with what Cop28 president Sultan Al-Jaber, the head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, has said about the world needing to phase out “fossil fuel emissions” rather than fossil fuels themselves.

‘Break the addiction’

But at a climate summit in New York yesterday, UN chief Antonio Guterres had stronger words. “[G20 countries] must break their addiction to fossil fuels, stop new coal, and heed the International Energy Agency’s findings that new oil and gas licensing by them is incompatible with keeping the 1.5 degree limit alive,” he said.

The UN had reserved speaking slots at the summit for those it deemed “first movers and doers”. China – like the US and UK –  did not make the cut.

The head of the European Union Ursula Von Der Leyen said that “other major emitters” needed to match the EU’s ambition to ensure “unabated fossil fuels are phased out well before 2050”.

German leader Olaf Scholz told the room that at Cop28 “it will take strong resolution of us all to phase out fossil fuels – first and foremost coal”.

The prime minister of the Pacific island of Tuvalu Kausea Natano said “there is no bigger threat than fossil fuels”.

At last year’s Cop27 climate talks, a broad coalition of nations pushed for fossil fuel phase-out language in the decision text. They were blocked by oil and gas producers like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia, while China remained silent.

‘First movers’ only: US, China, UK left off UN climate guestlist

At a meeting of the G20 this month, leaders of 20 major economies including China were unable to agree to phase out fossil fuels.

Renewables target

But the G20 did agree to try and triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 and today Xie said he had an “open attitude” towards the goal.

He said it must be “acceptable to all parties, considering different national circumstances and combining qualitative and quantitative aspects”.

He said that a new energy system should be established before the old one is abolished.

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In his speech today, Xie took aim at wealthy countries for failing to deliver the $100 billion a year of climate finance they promised by 2020 which “pertains to the trust between the North and the South”.

Rich nations say they are “confident” of delivering that money this year, although the figures won’t be out until 2025.

Xie said that the loss and damage fund should be set up at Cop28 and there should be arrangements to make sure developed countries meet their target to double finance to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

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Climate Home News identified at least 33 executives and employees of companies directly involved in the nascent deep-sea mining industry on the list of state delegations at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) annual meeting.

The little-known UN agency is tasked with setting the rules for the extraction of minerals found on the vast ocean floor in international waters. No such activity is currently taking place at commercial level yet.

But this year’s summit came at a pivotal moment, as any member state could now theoretically apply for a mining contract on behalf of a company. That is after a deadline to establish mining rules triggered by the island-nation of Nauru lapsed earlier in July.

The meeting pitted a handful of countries pushing for the ISA to introduce regulations and issue permits against a growing coalition calling for a halt to operations until the full environmental impacts are known.

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Mining companies claim that minerals like nickel and cobalt extracted from polymetallic nodules lying on the seabed are needed in batteries and will help speed up the energy transition. An area of the Pacific Ocean floor known as the Clarion Clipperton Zone, which is under the control of the ISA, contains a high concentration of the golf ball-sized nodules.

A deep-sea creature moving over polymetallic nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Zone. Photo: ROV Team/GEOMAR

Environmental campaigners and several governments dispute the industry’s claims, saying that more mining isn’t necessary and deep sea operations will damage ecosystems we still know little about. More than 750 marine scientists signed an open letter calling for a ban on the practice until robust scientific evidence can back it up.

Unfettered access

Countries bring delegations to the meeting mostly made up of government officials, but also including scientists, corporate lobbyists and, to a lesser extent, NGO representatives.

Unlike non-governmental agencies that can apply for observer status, private companies do not have an official way to participate at the ISA talks. But industry representatives routinely attend the meetings, usually by embedding in the delegations of the countries sponsoring their mining licenses.

A lead negotiator told Climate Home News that the number of industry representatives at the talks last July was similar to that seen in previous years but, for the first time, they took part in the small-room negotiations.

“Each country has the right to include in its delegation whoever it chooses,” they added. “But it is very telling when a delegation brings a contractor into the close negotiations limited to member states. It shows who is influencing its decisions.”

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Bobbi-Jo Dubosh from The Ocean Foundation said that the access given to mining industry representatives should be contrasted with restrictions being imposed on civil society and media.

“Miners may attend the ISA as part of state delegations, which allows them into every room, no matter how small,” she added. “In contrast, civil society sits outside of closed-door meetings, and – depending on the week – media aren’t even allowed on premises at the ISA”.

An ISA spokesperson said it is not for the agency’s secretariat to comment on the composition of individual country delegations.

Nauru, China, Japan, Jamaica, Belgium, the UK, Netherlands, the Cook Islands and Singapore all brought mining executives and consultants to the talks in Kingston, Jamaica, last month, according to an analysis by Climate Home News.

All these countries except the Netherlands directly sponsor companies that are looking into ways to collect precious metals from the ocean floor.

The Metals Company contingent

Among the most high-profile industry players in Kingston was Gerard Barron, the outspoken CEO of The Metals Company (TMC), a Canadian deep-sea mining startup that is at the forefront of efforts to mine the ocean.

Barron joined the talks as a representative of Nauru, the Pacific island nation sponsoring one of his company’s licenses. Nauru heaped pressure on the ISA in 2021 when it triggered an obscure mechanism that gave the UN agency two years to write up regulations for mining.

The move fuelled TMC’s hopes for an accelerated start to commercial mining. But as the deadline passed, ISA members decided to delay the adoption of regulations until 2025 – to the disappointment of Barron and Nauru’s government officials.

Gerard Barron (left) with other members of the Nauru delegation at the ISA meetings last July. Photo: IISD/ENB – Diego Noguera

Barron is no stranger to ISA talks. In 2019 he sparked controversy when he addressed other negotiators from the seat of the Nauruan delegation during a plenary session, urging regulations to be completed.

Another TMC executive and two veteran mining consultants joined Barron on the list of Nauru representatives this year.

Nathan Eastwood is an Australia-based mining industry lawyer who recently left a job at the ISA. As the New York Times revealed, in 2021 he took a sabbatical from his law firm to work as a legal officer for the UN agency and help it draft the mining regulations. Eastwood is now an advisor to TMC’s Nauruan subsidiary.

He followed in the footsteps of another Nauru representative, Chris Brown. Before becoming an advisor to Nauru, Brown had spent several years helping the ISA set its mining rules as an employee and consultant at the UN body.

An ISA spokesperson said the agency follows the most rigorous standards of good governance. “The specificity of the work required by the development of the Mining Code calls for high levels of expertise in certain subject areas, such as mining law and the law of the sea, which is rare,” they said, adding that consultants are bound by “very specific and strict contractual terms” designed to avoid any conflict of interest.

Agenda fight

During the week-long gathering of the ISA assembly members, Nauru opposed a motion proposed by a group of countries led by Chile, Costa Rica and France to officially discuss a moratorium for the first time. The standoff prevented the approval of an agenda of the talks until the last day when the two sides reached a compromise. A discussion on a halt to deep sea mining will be put on the provisional agenda next year.

In blocking the motion, the island nation was flanked initially by Mexico, but most persistently by China.

Chinese and Chilean negotiators looking for a compromise on the final day of the ISA talks. Photo: IISD/ENB – Diego Noguera

Unlike most other countries, China did not spell out on the participants’ list the affiliation of its delegation members. But Climate Home News has identified at least two representatives of Chinese state-owned companies that are currently exploring the ocean seabed for metal extraction.

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China is in favour of deep-sea mining and is doubling down on efforts to be at the forefront of the nascent sector. At this year’s meeting, China opposed the inclusion of a moratorium debate on the agenda most vehemently, arguing it was “not suitable” for discussion. Its lead negotiator also said the ISA should be actively pushing ahead with its work to finalise mining rules.

Japan arrived in Kingston with the largest group of industry advisers among its ranks. Seven representatives for each of the country’s two state-backed deep-sea mining players joined the delegation. Japan wants to extract cobalt and other metals needed for the production of electric vehicles from the Pacific Ocean seabed in a bid to reduce its reliance on China for the minerals.

Japan was hoping the ISA regulations would be in place by this July, but it also reiterated its commitment “to protecting the marine environment and biodiversity”.

European miners represented

The host country for the talks, Jamaica, also included a number of deep-sea mining executives in its large delegation. These included Romeo Spinelli and Peter Jantzen, directors of Blue Minerals Jamaica, which in December 2020 became the latest company to obtain an exploration licence from the ISA. Before launching the Jamaican ventures, Spinelli and Jantzen had worked for various oil and gas companies.

According to research by the Environmental Justice Foundation, Blue Minerals is a subsidiary of Allseas, a Swiss group specialized in laying underwater oil and gas pipelines. Allseas is very active in deep-sea mining, also as an investor and operating partner of The Metals Company. The Swiss firm is developing a system to collect the polymetallic nodules from the seabed and transport them onto a vessel. An Allseas engineer was part of the Jamaican delegation at the talks, alongside the Blue Minerals representatives.

Two of Allseas’ European rivals also sent representatives to Kingston joining the delegations of Belgium and the Netherlands respectively.

Among the advisors to the Belgian team was Kris Van Nijen, managing director of Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR), which holds an ISA permit and has been testing a series of technologies, including underwater robots, to extract minerals from the ocean floor.

Delegates meet on the first day of the annual Assembly meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Photo: IISD/ENB – Diego Noguera

Even though it did not join the call for a moratorium directly, Belgium showed support for a discussion of the proposal at ISA meetings. It also said there should be no seabed mining without agreeing on a set of rules that ensure high environmental standards and sound scientific knowledge.

The Dutch delegation included two employees of Royal IHC, a Dutch firm developing systems to harvest metals from the deep-sea sustainably as part of a programme subsidised by the European Union.

Deep-sea mining ban draws closer despite China’s opposition

The United Kingdom signed up as advisors to its negotiating team two representatives of UK Seabed Resources, a deep-sea mining company sponsored by the British government. The company was acquired last March by Norway’s Loke Marine Minerals from the US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. The Norwegian company, which is backed by oil and gas investors, hopes to start mining activities in 2030.

Louisa Casson from Greenpeace said the ISA has long been “a fortress for industry interests, with the private companies based in the Global North lobbying hard for deals that would maximise their profit”.

But she added many more people are now voicing their concerns about deep sea mining and negotiations “need to catch up” with the outside world.

The article was amended on 11/08/23 to include comments from the ISA received after publication

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It’s the first time this proposal will be formally discussed at a UN international body.

For the past three weeks, governments gathered in Kingston, Jamaica, at a little-known UN agency called the International Seabed Authority (ISA), to discuss a moratorium on mining on the deep seabed in international waters. No companies are currently carrying out such projects yet.

A coalition of nations pushed for a ban to be placed on the agenda but were opposed by Mexico, Nauru and most persistently by China. Towards the end of the meeting though, they won a concession agreeing that it be put provisonally on the agenda next year.

Greenpeace campaigner Louisa Casson was at the talks and said this was “incredibly exciting” and that deep-sea mining has now become”less likely” while Costa Rica’s negotiator Gina Guillen-Grillo tweeted that there will be a discussion on a temporary ban next year.

Proud of the results of hard work led by likeminded countries with the support of many others,this week at the ISA.
We achieved that next ISA Assembly will have stand alone discussion of General Policy for the application of Precautionary Principle @CRcancilleria pic.twitter.com/YMwA427BSy

— Gina Guillen-Grillo (@GinaGGCR) July 29, 2023

But other environmentalists were less upbeat. Bobbi-Jo Dobush from The Ocean Foundation told Mongabay that China’s blocking of talks on a ban “squandered hours of much needed discussion time” and deep sea scientist Patricia Esquete said the blocking of talks was “very concerning”.

The mining companies claim that minerals like nickel and cobalt are needed in batteries and will help speed up the energy transition but environmental campaigners like Casson dispute this, saying that more mining isn’t necessary and deepsea mining will damage ecosystems we still know little about.

Agenda fight

In Kingston, a coalition of over a dozen countries spearheaded by Chile, France and Costa Rica tried to officially debate for the first time in history the possibility to ban deep-sea mining until its full impact on the ocean’s biodiversity is understood.

Hervè Berville, the French Minister for Marine Affairs, told the Assembly on Wednesday that the world “must not and cannot embark on a new industrial activity without measuring the consequences and taking the risk of irreversible damage”.

The French minister for Marine Affairs speaking at the ISA Assembly. Photo: IISD/ENB | Diego Noguera

But China, Mexico and the Pacific island of Nauru opposed a halt. While Mexico and Nauru relented, China continued to oppose even putting a moratorium on the official agenda saying it was “not suitable” for discussion.

Gina Guillén, head of the Costa Rican delegation said “just one country is opposing [the agenda item on the discussion]. We hope it does happen. One country can’t hijack the most important body of the [ISA] just for being a big economy. That goes against all principles of multilateralism.”

In a bad-tempered last day of talks, China’s negotiator Wenting Zhao defended herself, saying that if the agenda isn’t agreed “everyone will know who is responsible for this”.

France’s negotiator hit back, saying that those “who blame others are the responsible for this situation” and “if there is a responsibility, it is not ours, we have made concessions”.

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Eventually, governments agreed a compromise. They would not discuss a ban at this meeting but would put a discussion on the provisional agenda next year. This year it was only proposed for the supplementary agenda.

Casson said the discussion “would still need to be adopted by governments so [there] may well be pushback” but she said that moving it from the supplementary agenda to the provisional shows “substantive arguments against it have conceded”.

“This compromise does in effect accept that the ISA Assembly does have the authority to debate the development of a general policy of the ISA, including the possibility of a establishing moratorium on deep-sea mining. So arguably a small step forward but only the beginning of the debate in the Assembly,” Casson explained.

Time pressure

On the other side to Casson is Gerrard Barron, the outspoken CEO of the leading deep sea mining hopeful The Metals Company (TMC). In a statement targetted at investors in his troubled company, he celebrated the ISA’s decision to keep drawing up rules for deep-sea mining.

“It is now a question of when — rather than if — commercial-scale nodule collection will begin”, he said.

The ISA had been pressured into this by the government of Nauru, which is sponsoring TMC. In July 2011, the government of the tiny Pacific nation triggered a mechanism which gave the ISA two years to write up regulations for mining.

That deadline passed this July. Barron said he was “obviously disappointed” that they didn’t finish writing the rules on time but said he believes “the finishing line is within sight”.

But Barron’s investors were less impressed, as TMC’s share price nearly halved between the start of the meeting and its end.

Casson said that the meeting had showed how politically controversial deep sea mining had become and that, as it needs to be signed off by governments at the ISA, it was unlikely to start soon.

Critical minerals

The International Energy Agency has warned that there are likely to be shortages in minerals like lithium, cobalt and nickel which will hold back the energy transition.

But, with more investment in mining on land, the IEA’s fears are easing and Casson said that companies like Tesla are cuttinb back on the amount of these minerals they use.

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Casson said that these minerals and batteries should be recylcled “rather than looking to repeat the problems of mining on land in the ocean”.

The ISA’s power only covers parts of the sea which are more than 200 miles from the coast and more than 200 metres deep.

Mining on the seabed closer to the coast is allowed under international rules but no government has started doing it yet.

The Norwegian government has proposed mining its northern waters and will put their proposals to parliament this autumn.

The post Deep-sea mining ban draws closer despite China’s opposition appeared first on Climate Home News.

There was no outcome document and no grand announcements. Nothing to impress the Republican congressmen who gave Kerry a grilling over China’s alleged climate failings last week.

But Xie was never going to get up and say that Kerry had talked him into abandoning new coal plants – any more than Kerry ever going to say Beijing had pressured him into giving more climate finance and removing American tariffs on Chinese solar panels.

The gains were more incremental. With expectations low, the meetings were cautiously hailed by experts as a “small win” and “an important step in what will be a complex rescue operation”.

US-China cooperation on climate had long withstood geopolitical tensions, but talks froze after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022. Since then, they have slowly resumed.

Now, the “rescue operation” will continue with two more meetings planned before Cop28. In a press conference, Kerry said they’ll talk about two US priorities – coal and methane.

Success would be if China finally publishes its methane strategy. Or reforms of its electric grid to translate its booming number of solar panels and wind turbines into growth in renewables’ share of China’s electricity, a link that isn’t as automatic as you might think.

But, as China reiterated this week, the talks are still hostage to the wider relationship. Any high-profile US defence of Taiwan’s sovereignty could set them back to square one.

This week’s news:

• Biden’s union-friendly green jobs pitch meets sceptical response
• Frans Timmermans steps down from EU’s climate leadership
• Dozens of oil & industry lobbyists attended secretive shipping emissions talks
• Under record heatwave, US and China “unstick” climate talks
• EU and Argentina strike gas, hydrogen & renewables deal
• Australia will update the ‘fantasy’ net zero plan it inherited

…and comment:

• Open letter from 14 countries to G20: Safeguard a liveable future
• The EU-Mercosur trade deal will harm Brazil’s indigenous communities

While Kerry and Xie were dining in Beijing, another big hitter was preparing to leave the climate diplomacy stage.

Frans Timmermans has been the straight-talking, passionate face of the EU’s climate policy since 2019.

But now he’s leaving Brussels to try and become the next prime minister of his native Netherlands.

Who will lead the EU at Cop28 is unclear and, with Xie suffering health problems and Kerry considering retirement, it could be all change at the top by Cop29.

The post US-China talks thaw in heatwave – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

Just this year, China will install much more solar than it was doing just a few years ago and more, in one year, than the US has installed in its history. The growth in capacity will be huge.

But the percentage of China’s electricity which is generated by wind and solar is still expected to grow slowly, by less than 1% a year between 2023 and 2030.

How does exponential growth in new solar lead to just 1% growth in the amount of solar used? Because longstanding issues in China’s power market curtail the impact that new solar or wind power can have.

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Issues include the electricity market and grid’s inability to transfer power between regions even on grids already linked up physically, the under-developed price mechanism for renewable energy, and little support for energy storage.

These issues require policy attention first and foremost, highlighting the ways that the world’s largest energy transition needs more than buckets of hardware. And why continued focus on coal power for “energy security” leads policymakers to overlook fundamental items on the energy transition checklist.

China has not lacked the capacity to generate electricity for years but, even with an overcapacity of coal plants, high-growth regions have struggled to meet growing energy demand.

That isn’t because there isn’t enough power, but because China’s power system isn’t able to deliver it.

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For example, even if they’re linked by transmission cables, transferring power from a province which generates a lot of electricity to a neighbouring province which uses a lot of electricity isn’t possible without clear policy guidance for the electricity market.

Despite an overcapacity of coal plants, an outdated grid with restrictive, inflexible policies that limit regional electricity grids from performing basic electricity transfers can mean that one province sits on wasted power supply while its neighbor’s lights go out.

This hampers coal’s ability to provide electricity across China. Instead of fixing these issues though, authorities are just building more coal power plants.

If they are not resolved, these issues could derail wind and solar’s ability to deliver the world’s biggest energy transition.

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You can install all the solar panels and wind turbines you want. Unless there’s the policy and infrastructure to support them to meet electricity demand, then the the inefficiencies inheritied over from a coal-reliant power system could choke the development of renewables.

One solution is energy storage – things like batteries. But, even for a technology with as much investment appeal as this, basic policy support is necessary.

China’s electricity grid has for decades prioritised fossil fuel energy sources and the factors of this preferential treatment for fossil fuel continue today.

One major factor that blocks the application of energy storage is the power grid’s preferential sourcing of electricity from large-scale power plants, such as a typical coal plant, so there is a unidirectional transmission of electricity from a major hub to a number of end points – the electricity users.

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The alternative is that the grid would select a number of smaller power sources which can more efficiently switch on and off of supplying electricity, and coordinate a multidirectional flow of electricity among multiple sources and multiple endpoints.

It is only under this second scenario – which energy planners have projected as China’s future of renewable energy use – that energy storage has a real application.

As coal plants cannot efficiently turn on and off, and China’s grid responds to this by keeping them on, energy storage remains sidelined despite its future role as a key player.

While China’s renewables generate a lot less electricity than they could do if used properly, the opposite is true for coal.

Carbon credits touted as saviour of coal-to-clean energy deals

While the percentage of renewable energy in China’s energy mix is increasing, actual use of those new energy sources remains low.

In the end, renewables generate a loss less electricity in China than they could.

The opposite is true for coal which continues to get preferential status from China’s energy systems.

And China’s most recent energy roadmap has projected that coal use will continue to grow at a “reasonable speed” into 2030.

This continued growth risks locking China out of a renewable energy transition, and mountains of unused solar panels alone won’t be able to unlock it.

At Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office, Gao Yuhe is a project leader and August Rick is an international communications officer

The post Unfinished paperwork is kneecapping solar’s potential in China appeared first on Climate Home News.

Images of her have been doctored to appear to show her gaining weight and posts asserted she castigated the Chinese people for using chopsticks for apparently environmental reasons. 

Social media posts altered an image of Greta Thunberg to imply she had put on weight. The real image is on the right. (Photo: Annie Lab)

These claims have been debunked time and time again. At Annie Lab, our fact-checking project at the University of Hong Kong, we tried to set the record straight about the manipulated images in 2021 and 2022.  

These fraudulent posts against Thunberg may seem harmless. But our research has traced it back to a wider narrative, one that is seen as retaliation for her perceived “attacks” on China. 

In May 2021, Thunberg tweeted that China, while categorised as a developing nation, still emits a lot of greenhouse gases. “We can’t solve the climate crisis unless China drastically changes course,” she said.  

This spurred heated reactions from China Daily’s EU bureau chief Chen Weihua, who tweeted back to Thunberg that she was barking up the wrong tree because developed countries are the biggest historical emitters. 

Your PR team should educate u more. 1. China’s pop is 2xOECD, so per capita emission much lower. 2. OECD countries have relocated much pollution/emission industries to China/other developing nations. So don’t pretend you’re innocent. 3. OECD by far the largest historical emitter.

— Chen Weihua （陈卫华） (@chenweihua) May 8, 2021

Thunberg was then labelled a “puppet of Western politicians” and a “selective environmentalist” by Chinese netizens who claimed that, although she spoke about China’s carbon footprint, she did not discuss Japan’s plan to release nuclear wastewater into the Pacific. In reality, Thunberg did share this latter news on Twitter. 

The slew of misleading posts against Thunberg is just one example of how climate misinformation has evolved in China.  

More than a decade ago, climate change was framed as a Western hoax by popular TV host Larry Lang Hsien-ping, host of the evening show Larry’s Eyes on Finance, who said in a 2010 episode that Western countries “manufactured the climate myth without any scientific integrity”.  

This belief was echoed in some Chinese books published between 2009 and 2011. However, these books “disappeared” after 2011, in common with public statements made by prominent figures like Lang.  

Bonn climate talks at risk of collapse, after 7-day agenda debate

Climate journalist Geoff Dembicki has linked this to a number of factors, including a 2012 survey showing 93% of Chinese people believed climate change is happening and the government tackling climate change head-on. 

However, climate misinformation in China’s digital sphere is still very much alive. For our report, we collected over 100 misleading posts on Chinese social media platforms including Weibo, Douyin and Baidu between September 2022 and April 2023. 

We also looked into platforms outside the country’s ‘Great Firewall’ such as YouTube, Twitter, Rumble, Bitchute, as well as news outlets like The Epoch Times, a far-right publication linked to Falun Gong, a religious sect banned in China. 

Although China is now seen as a green technology hub, we found Chinese social media posts, particularly on Twitter, sharing unverified videos supposedly showing Beijing’s shoddy products such as e-vehicles bursting into flames and wind turbines breaking.  

Social media posts falsely claimed that electric vehicles were catching fire (Photo: Annie Lab)

While we were not able to definitively determine the motivations behind these posts attacking China’s low-carbon initiatives, we can say that they indicate divergence and dissonance in political viewpoints.  

A more pronounced and direct example is the perpetuation of debunked claims about climate science by The Epoch Times in an attempt to show that climate change is an agenda pushed by China for its own benefit. 

Another narrative we found claimed that rising temperatures would make parts of mainland China prosperous again, referencing the experiences of Han and Tang Dynasty. This, however, has been debunked by experts from Chinese government agencies themselves.  

China Environment News, the official publication of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, quoted Zhang Chengyi, a researcher at the China Meteorological Administration’s National Climate Center in its fact-check on the topic. Zheng said rising temperature is not the only factor behind changes in rainfall, an explanation which addresses beliefs that increased warming will lead to more precipitation in arid areas in northwestern China.  

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The China Environment News article also pointed out that the belief that “the most prosperous era in Chinese history was in the warm period”, was mainly based on the preliminary research of Zhu Kezhen, China’s foremost meteorologist. His work made the same observations, but it overlooked other contributing factors such as political, economic, diplomatic and social conditions.  

We also found narratives that undermined the human contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and pointed to other causes, such as solar activity and volcanic eruption. There were posts alleging that climate change is part of a natural cycle and that the world is entering an ice age soon.  

China has sought to address this kind of misinformation. China Youth Daily, quoting experts from China’s space weather forecasting station, debunked a claim about solar activity supposedly causing extreme weather events. 

Rich world’s leaders fail to commit to Paris global financing summit

The above examples show China’s conscious efforts to correct some narratives of climate misinformation.  

But when it comes to climate misinformation that has a patently more political aspect or is viewed as attacking China’s identity, clarificatory statements from the state are far from robust. Official attempts to quell misleading posts against Thunberg, for example, are not as evident.  

Annie Lab tried as much as possible to capture this tension and idiosyncrasy in China’s climate misinformation, a tension that is only expected to evolve and, unlike books, not disappear anytime soon.  

Purple Romero is a supervising editor at Annie Lab, a fact-checking project based at the University of Hong Kong

The post China is quick to combat social media’s climate lies – but not when they are about their critics appeared first on Climate Home News.

 Some experts suggested that China has “only delivered 10%” of the China South-South Climate Cooperation fund since it was announced eight years ago, calling the pace “quite slow”.

Others said it would be “hard to tell” how much of the pledge has been fulfilled due to a lack of official updates. 

Li Shuo, senior global policy advisor at Greenpeace East Asia, described the fund’s details as “confusing” but believed that China “has not delivered as much as it promised”. 

In 2015, China’s President Xi Jinping announced the fund during a state visit to the USA, months before unprecedented US-Chinese climate cooperation helped the world agree to the Paris agreement.

Xi Jinping and Barack Obama in California in 2015

 At the time, Xi said that China would “make available” 20 billion yuan ($3.1 billion) to help other developing countries tackle climate change. But he did not set a deadline for the fund’s delivery. 

 Delivery ‘not as promising’ 

China’s climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said at Cop27 that China had provided 2 billion yuan ($310 million) to other developing countries, which are otherwise known as the Global South, to reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change.

Xie did not give more information about the figure. But E3G, a thinktank focused on climate change policy, interpreted Xie’s words as an update on the China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund. 

It said in a recent analysis that China’s climate finance to the Global South “falls short” of its own pledge because the nation has delivered just one-tenth in seven years. 

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Byford Tsang, senior policy advisor at E3G, told Climate Home News that “at the current pace, I think it would take quite a long time [for China] to fulfil its pledge”. But he acknowledged that, as a developing country, China is not obliged to provide any formal climate finance.

Although it is possible that Beijing would give “an injection” to the fund to accelerate its delivery, “based on what has been achieved so far, it was not as promising as people were thinking during the start”, Tsang continued. 

 Institutional challenges 

 Tsang of E3G pointed to “institutional challenges” as reasons for the fund’s sluggish progress because it is managed by different ministries, which makes it complicated to disperse.

According to a study  published by China’s National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC), an affiliation to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment “multiple departments” are “involved” in China’s south-south cooperation on climate change. 

“Apart from the newly established Ministry of Ecology and Environment (established in 2018), it also involves China International Development Cooperation Agency, the ministries of commerce, finance and foreign affairs, as well as the National Development and Reform Commission,” the study said. 

It added that the China South-South Climate Cooperation had yet to be set up for various reasons, including lack of coordination – a fact that “had affected the progress of the south-south climate change cooperation and international reputation” of China. 

“A common understanding is that the promised amount would need to be distributed by the fund. If the fund has not been established, then its delivery is an open question,” Li of Greenpeace East Asia told Climate Home News. 

 He said the overall situation is “unclear” because China has not reported the fund’s progress regularly. “On the other hand, China is not obliged to give such reports internationally,” he added. 

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Duan Hongbo is a professor at the School of Economics and Management at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He said that the politics and attitude of potential recipient countries – most of which are the least developed in the world – also play a role. For example, some countries constantly change their points of contact and others “are more interested in projects that would boost their economy than combat climate change.” The Covid-19 pandemic also delayed global cooperation, he said. 

But some observers urge China to make bigger strides. Belinda Schäpe, policy adviser at E3G, told Climate Home News: “China hasn’t put a timeline on the fund. But for it to actually have an impact, it should happen faster.” 

As China sees the south-south climate cooperation as a way to “portray itself as the responsible leader power”, to keep that leadership of the developing world and its credibility as the climate leader, accelerating the delivery of its climate fund is the “rational next step”, she added. 

Ten-hundred-thousand

The Chinese government has not specified how the fund would be spent, but experts from a Chinese state-affiliated thinktank NCSC said China has been funnelling it through the so-called “Ten-Hundred-Thousand” projects announced by President Xi at the opening ceremony of the 2015 Paris climate talks. 

Xi said that from 2016, China would “launch cooperation projects to set up 10 pilot low-carbon industrial parks and start 100 [emissions reduction] and [adapting to climate change] programs in other developing countries and provide them with 1,000 training opportunities on climate change”.  

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Xi’s statement clarified the scope of the fund, wrote Li Yan, an NCSC analyst, in a 2020 report. 

China said in its most recent climate change “white paper” that by July 2022, it had signed 43 agreements on climate change cooperation with 38 developing countries, agreed to build low-carbon industrial parks in Laos, Cambodia and Seychelles, and carried out 40 emissions reduction and adaptating to climate change projects in more than 30 nations. 

The paper said China had allocated 1.2 billion yuan ($170 million) to the south-south climate change cooperation by last July but did not explain whether the money had been dispersed through the fund. It also remains unclear if Xie’s statement was an update for this figure. 

A fund ‘out of goodwill’ 

Developed countries – including the US, Canada, Australia, Japan and much of Western Europe — have been condemned for failing to live up to their long-standing promise of providing $100 billion a year to developing countries by 2020 to help the latter reduce and adapt to the impact of climate change. 

The pledge was made in 2009 to reflect wealthy nations’ historical responsibility for causing climate change during their industrialisation. They are responsible for half of all historical carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions globally despite always being a small minority of its population. 

As China is considered a developing country, it is not obliged to provide climate finance, according to the principle of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the foundation of international climate negotiations which was set up in 1992.

In theory, it is also eligible to receive aid from developed countries. But at the Copenhagen climate talks in 2009, China said that small island states, the least developed countries and African nations should be “prioritised” in receiving financial support, indicating that it would not fight for climate finance shelled out by developed countries. 

Furthermore, China launched its South-South Cooperation on Climate Change mechanism in 2011 to support other developing countries. Since then, it has provided aid mainly through donating materials, sharing knowledge and offering training programmes. 

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Duan told Climate Home News that it was “crucial” for any evaluation of the fund to understand that China’s position and obligations are different from that of developed countries. 

“China is not responsible for providing any climate finance to developing countries,” Duan said. “Its commitment is completely voluntary and out of goodwill. Therefore, any contribution [from China] should be viewed as a positive impact.” 

Regarding the “confusing accounts” of climate finance, Duan said that “not only China, but the entire global climate community” is facing this problem. 

 “There are different ways to calculate climate finance depending on how a country defines its scope and how much pressure it is under to deliver it,” he explained.  

The post Confusion surrounds China’s pledged climate finance towards the Global South  appeared first on Climate Home News.

But since then, it’s all gone quiet. We looked into why and the answers are personal and geopolitical.

The two sides’ climate relationship is heavily reliant on the personal relationship of their climate envoys, John Kerry and Xie Zhenhua.

They’re both in their seventies and climate diplomacy is hard work.

A month after Kerry caught Covid at Cop27, Xie suffered what Kerry described as  “something of a stroke”, leaving him incapacitated for weeks and unable to travel abroad ever since.

Then there was the Chinese spy balloon scandal and the visit of Taiwan’s president to California to meet Congressional leader Kevin McCarthy.

But the relationship seems to have survived as Kerry has been invited to China for climate talks. Formal cooperation on methane emissions, the energy transition and saving forests could follow.

This week’s news: 

• Exxon scrambles to save investments before Colombia bans fracking
• What is the global stocktake of climate action and why does it matter?
• Mitsubishi bets on carbon removal while keeping coal plants
• Comment: Reporting on climate adaptation is a mess – here’s how to fix it
• Despite Taiwan and spy balloon tensions, China invites US for climate talks
• US solar boom on hold as industry awaits subsidy rules

Kerry and an unconfirmed Chinese representative will join 38 other ministers in Berlin on Tuesday, as the climate circus comes to town for the annual Petersberg climate dialogue.

After the opening speeches, in which the UAE’s Sultan Al-Jaber will lay out his vision for Cop28, the government officials will sit in circles around flip charts to talk.

That health-check on progress since the Paris Agreement was signed will dominate climate talks to Cop28 and beyond so we’ve published a handy explainer.

You can watch all the public parts here with opening speeches at 10.30am German time on Tuesday and a closing press conference at 1.45pm on Wednesday followed by words from German leader Olaf Scholz.

The post Climate Weekly – US-China talks stall but survive appeared first on Climate Home News.

The two veteran diplomats spoke virtually last week as the US hosted the Major Economies Forum on climate. During this talk,  Xie issued an invitation to Kerry, the former US secretary of state told Foreign Policy magazine.

“My hope is that out of these discussions we get back to where we were two years ago because we must be able too cooperate together on this issue”, Kerry said.

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While US president Joe Biden’s government has tried to keep climate talks separate to the broader US-China relationship, issues such as the independence of Taiwan and the recent Chinese spy balloon scandal have prevented the two sides from engaging meaningfully on climate change.

Health issues have also hindered progress, with Kerry telling Foreign Policy magazine that Xie suffered “something of a stroke” in January which prevented him from working for “a month and a half or so”. Xie has not made any foreign trips since and his participation in November’s Cop28 climate talks is in doubt.

Early promise

Biden appointed Kerry as his climate envoy shortly after he was elected in November 2020. Three months later, China’s president Xi Jinping brought Zhenhua out of retirement to be his climate envoy.

The appointments were seen as a boost to the chances that the two sides could work together on climate change, as they did under the Obama administration to bring about the Paris agreement in 2015, due to the two men’s long and friendly relationship.

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After dozens of virtual and several in-person meetings, these hopes were further boosted at the end of 2021 when the two sides announced a joint agreement on climate at the Cop26 climate talks in Glasgow. Both sides committed to discuss measures to reduce methane emissions.

Powerful officials and experts from both countries were supposed to begin discussions on issues such as clean electricity, the circular economy and city climate action, as well as methane, in September 2022.

Pelosi triggers breakdown

But in August 2022, the head of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi went on an official visit to Taiwan, an island nation off China’s east coast that the Chinese government considers part of China.

China reacted by cancelling the climate talks, a move Kerry called “both disappointing and misguided”. Instead of cooperating, official from both sides engaged in public Twitter spats over their climate records.

Nancy Pelosi walks with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen (Photo: Makoto Lin/Taiwan President’s office)

A few months later in November, tensions cooled after Biden and Xi had a productive meeting on the sidelines of the G20 in Indonesia. They agreed to work together on climate change and their climate teams, both of which were at Cop27 in Egypt at the time, were allowed to talk formally again.

After that meeting, the US announced that its top foreign affairs official Anthony Blinken would visit China. But that trip was cancelled when the US military shot down a Chinese balloon in US airspace in February.

McCarthy compromises

Then in April, Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-Wen visited the US and met with Pelosi’s successor as leader of the US House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy.

According to Thom Woodroofe, senior fellow of the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former climate diplomat, the meeting was made less provocative to China because it was held in McCarthy’s home state of California rather than in the US Congress or in Taiwan.

The US government downplayed this trip by calling it a mere “transit stop” on Tsai’s way to the Caribbean.

Despite these setbacks, Kerry told Foreign Policy last week that the two sides are “back in the place where we are hopefully able to move forward”. But, he added, “it’s purely speculative at this point”.

If they did meet, Kerry said they would work together on reducing methane emissions, the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables, and stopping forests from being destroyed.

US solar boom on hold as industry awaits subsidy rules

Compared to geopolitics, intellectual property and other controversies, climate is considered a relatively easy issue for the two sides to discuss.

Greenpeace East Asia advisor Li Shuo told Climate Home: “If both countries can’t talk on such an issue with shared interest then I don’t know what else is there for the bilateral relationship.”

Woodroofe said that, if the US and China are going to cooperate, it has to be now. Kerry has talked about retiring soon, Xie is unwell and there may be a Republican in the White House next year, he noted.

“Diplomacy is all about personalities and people,” said Woodroofe. “The fact is we have the two elder statesmen – who both have the cache to achieve outcomes – it’s a really rare and significant situation that can achieve progress”.

“If not them now, then who?” he asked.

The post Despite Taiwan and spy balloon tensions, China invites US for climate talks appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a joint statement, the countries said they “intend to engage collaboratively in support of eliminating global illegal logging and deforestation through effectively enforcing their respective laws on banning illegal imports and exports”.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva met with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during a visit to China, in a bid to strengthen ties. China is Brazil’s largest trading partner and a major importer of commodities such as soy and crude petroleum.

Both countries added they will cooperate with satellite information, “which will enable enhanced monitoring”. China and Brazil share the CBERS satellite program, which made its first launch back in 2001.

Brazil bids to bring Cop30 climate talks to Amazon’s Belem

Cyntia Feitosa, international relations advisor at the Brazilian think tank Instituto Clima e Sociedade, said the joint statement was “a very good signal”, but warned there’s still questions about how it would be put into practice.

“It would be very good to see some joint traceability strategy, for example, to avoid the export of any product that has deforestation in its supply chain,” Feitosa said.

A 2019 report by the Brazilian NGO Amazon Watch showed that companies charged with environmental crimes in the Amazon were still able to export their products to the international market, in particular to Brazil’s three main trading partners — China, the EU and the US.

Climate leadership

With the arrival of Lula da Silva to Brazil’s presidency, the country resumed its efforts to influence global climate action. Da Silva also retook a closer relation with China, which at times was tense under the last government of Jair Bolsonaro.

Both countries now agreed to establish a Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change and support Brazil’s bid for Cop30. Back in January, Da Silva expressed his desire to host the UN climate talks in Belem, the second-biggest city in the Amazon region.

Lula revives $1 billion Amazon Fund and environmental protections

“China welcomes the Brazilian candidacy to host COP30, as the 2025 summit will be key to the very future of the global response to climate change,” the statement said.

Feitosa welcomed the countries’ collaboration with climate action at the center. “I hope this is reflected in a collaborative posture in the negotiations and the search for effective solutions at a crucial moment for the next steps in the implementation of the Paris Agreement,” she said.

Li Shuo, policy advisor for Greenpeace East Asia, said Brazil and China hold a big sway among develpoping countries, putting them in a unique position to lead initiatives coming from the Global South.

“A Brazil that is back to international scene and a China that seeks to enhance developing country solidarity should not just imply a fortress position, but rather a stance that champions global south concerns while at the same time advances their own action,” Shuo said.

“What we need is a more forward looking position from them that says developed countries need to act and so do we. Let’s hope the joint statement is a starting point to get us there,” he added.

This story was updated to include comments from Li Shuo.

The post China and Brazil to cooperate in stopping illegal trade fueling deforestation appeared first on Climate Home News.

The initiatives are meant to slash methane emissions by changing irrigation methods in rice paddies. But projects in which Shell is involved have implemented a series of accounting tricks that would help them avoid stricter controls.

The oil and gas giant says the projects, certified by the leading carbon standard Verra, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase rice productivity, and provide job opportunities – particularly for women.

But their integrity is now under question.

Verra is now carrying out a quality review of its rice farming offsets after identifying a series of concerns with how rules were applied. It also banned any future use of the methodology under which the activities were developed.

Verra has put the projects linked to Shell on hold, pending its review. But the activities have already generated hundreds of thousands of carbon credits, which have been used by fossil fuel giants to compensate for part of their greenhouse gas emissions.

An investigation by Climate Home News has found alarm bells could have rung sooner.

It found rice paddies which are part of Shell’s carbon offsetting projects have allegedly been chopped into smaller plots to avoid stricter rules, according to an analysis of satellite images and emission reductions data.

Additionally, the techniques used are not entirely new, which further undermines their integrity. For nearly two decades, China had already rolled out the methane-reducing irrigation techniques championed by the project.

Governments battle over carbon removal and renewables in IPCC report

Shell acts as a ‘carbon credits broker’ in at least nine of the Chinese rice farming projects currently under review by Verra. The role grants the oil and gas giant the right to either claim the credits against its own emissions or transfer them to other companies, potentially profiting from their sale.

Fossil fuel companies including state-owned PetroChina have purchased more than 450,000 carbon credits issued by the rice farming projects in which Shell is involved. According to Quantum, a carbon market data provider, credits in Chinese rice farming projects have been traded for around $6, meaning that Shell may have pocketed up to $2.7m from their sale. 

Gilles Dufrasne, an expert from Carbon Market Watch, says the findings “raise concerns about the quality of the credits”.

“If project proponents are willing to ‘game the system’ in that way, these credits are not worth what they’re supposed to be worth. They should not be used for offsetting emissions”, he added.

Verra said it takes any concerns about the integrity of projects registered in the VCS Program very seriously and is committed to investigating them thoroughly.

A Shell spokesperson told Climate Home News the company is conducting its own internal review.

“We are aware of the review Verra is conducting of some of its rice cultivation projects and will look carefully at the results when they are published. Our diverse portfolio of carbon credits includes rice cultivation,” it added.

Carbon credits form an integral part of Shell’s net zero strategy. The company aims to offset emissions of around 120 million tonnes a year by 2030 with nature-based solutions of “the highest independently verified quality”.

But Shell has also become a major player in producing offsets, as well as buying them. In 2022 it invested $92 million in carbon credits projects.

This line of Shell’s business has repeatedly come under fire. The company’s purchase of forest carbon credits has been a particular focus of controversy. At the same time, however, Shell has been acquiring a primary role in a nascent, and less scrutinised, niche of the carbon credits market: rice farming.

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Lowering rice emissions

The farming of rice is a big contributor to climate change. The flooded fields, known as paddies, that rice traditionally grows in, encourage bacteria.

This breaks down decaying plants, turning them into a potent greenhouse gas called methane.

To reduce the damage to the climate and save water, over the last few decades some farmers have started to periodically drain their fields. With less standing water, there are fewer bacteria and less methane.

A rice farmer in a field irrigated with alternate wetting and drying methods. Photo credit: IRRI Photos/Flickr

In the early 2000s, the UN’s official carbon offsetting scheme was set up. Known as the Clean Development Mechanism, it established a set of rules for how to get paid to reduce emissions.

One of these sets of rules was meant to reward rice farmers for reducing their methane emissions, encouraging them to drain their fields.

The scheme was aimed at small communities who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford the switch to the more climate-friendly irrigation method.

To encourage small farmers to get involved, the rules allow small-scale projects to face fewer checks and paperwork.

Any project which cuts less than 60 kilo tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year is defined as small-scale.

But announcing a review of the methodology, Verra said it was concerned about how certain projects had been categorised as small-scale, therefore benefitting from looser requirements.

Chopped up rice fields

Climate Home News has analysed all of the 37 rice farming projects that have been registered by Verra using this methodology.

On average they declared annual emission reductions of 58.2 kilo tonnes of CO2. For one of the Shell projects the number is 59.99.

In other words, they manage to qualify as small-scale by a very narrow margin. If they had surpassed the 60 kilo tonnes threshold, they would have not been eligible as carbon credits.

Shell is a partner in at least nine paddy fields offsetting projects in China. They are all located in one of the country’s most important areas for rice production, the Eastern Anhui province.

On paper, the projects are presented as unrelated small-scale initiatives. But, at closer inspection, the similarities are striking. They were all approved on the same day, 29 May 2017, by the same proponent: Hefei Luyu, an agricultural technology company based in the capital of the Anhui province. The documents outlining the project's characteristics are broadly identical to one another and were written by the same Shanghai-based consultancy.

Each of those projects bundles together ten of thousands of disparate farms sitting on either side of the Yangtze river.

Our analysis can point to the close proximity of rice paddies grouped by Hefei Luyu under distinct projects. Climate Home News has identified the geographical location of the farms on satellite images. They show rice paddies intersecting into different projects without clear distinction. As little as 280 metres separate farms belonging to separate projects.

If all of those rice projects were merged into one, they would stretch for over 200 kilometers. They would also sum emissions reductions of over 500 kilo tonnes of CO2 per year, rendering them ineligible to be registered as carbon offsets.

Some of the rice fields included in different offsetting projects are only a few hundred meters away from one another

Verra began registering the projects in 2021 after having the proponent’s claims verified by external certification bodies based in China. Now, nearly two years later, Verra says its review has identified quality issues with the work of the validators.

Verra told Climate Home News it cannot comment on specific projects while they are under review.

Kazunori Minamikawa, a senior researcher at the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences who has conducted several studies on irrigation methods in rice paddies, believes the projects’ proponent may have artificially divided up fields across several projects to obtain the ‘small-scale’ status.

“They just follow the current rule,” he told Climate Home News. “But I think the developers of AMS-III.AU [the rice cultivation methodology] did not imagine such loophole at that time. To solve the concerns in the short run, Verra should create additional strict rules.”

Hefei Luyu did not respond to a request for comment.

Credits without integrity

The categorisation of a project as small-scale is not a trivial matter. In fact, this grants proponents a series of advantages.

Small-scale projects have more leeway in demonstrating that their type of activity is not already a common practice in the project's region. This key principle is known as additionality.

Under this requirement, a proponent needs to demonstrate that its emission reduction project would not have happened without the money obtained through the sale of carbon credits.

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Carbon Market Watch’s Gilles Dufrasne says the concept of additionality underpins the credibility of a carbon offsetting activity.

“The whole logic is that these projects should generate extra emission reductions and that's why they can be used to compensate other emissions somewhere else,” he told Climate Home News. “So it's plus one here, minus one there, it sort of matches up. But if that is not true, it actually leads to an increase in overall emissions. The entire system falls apart”.

The rice farming projects aim to cut methane emissions by helping farmers change irrigation method, switching from continuously flooded paddies to intermittently flooded ones. Thanks to the carbon credits, the projects outline says, farms have been equipped with the cement ditches necessary for the new water regime.

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Documents submitted by the proponents claim people in the areas “have poor living standards and economic backwardness”. Therefore, they would have been unable to implement a new methane-cutting irrigation system without the carbon offsetting initiatives. The documents add the additionality findings are based on surveys conducted by a local academy of social sciences.

Climate Home News has not been able to check the claims.

But opinions from experts and scientific literature suggest that the use of intermittent flooding in Chinese rice paddies is not entirely a new concept.

Chris Butenhoff, a physicist from Portland State University, studied efforts to reduce methane emissions in Chinese rice paddies in the early 2000s. He says it is certainly the case that changes in rice water management in China likely date back to at least the 1980s.

“The transition to intermittent flooding and drying of the rice paddy was driven in part by increased demand for water resources due to population growth, industrialization and expansion of hydropower resources,” he added.

Butenhoff says the data on this is poor so it is hard to have a precise historical record of how the practice spread geographically.

Rice farmers in the Anhui province of China take part in a trial implementing water-saving techniques. Photo credit: IRRI Photos/Flickr

Scientific studies suggest that in 2018 - when the offsetting projects began - around 41% of rice paddies in China were already being irrigated using an alternative wetting and drying method.

This rollout has coincided with the Chinese government making water-saving techniques a key tenet of its agricultural policy. The 2015 National Agricultural Sustainable Development Plan urged to “accelerate the construction of an efficient and water-saving agricultural system”. It set out a plan to increase the proportion of agricultural areas using water-saving irrigation to 75%.

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Kevin Chen, China Leader for CGIAR Mitigate + Initiative, says in recent years, China has invested significantly in building high-yield paddies through the construction of good irrigation systems. “At present, the water management method of paddy fields in most areas of China has changed from traditional flooding irrigation to mid-stage drying and wetting irrigation”, he added.

Chen says the impact has been known for a long time. "The adoption of intermittent flooding by paddy rice farmers might have reduced global emissions of methane from rice fields by about 12% during the decade 2000 to 2009".

Verra raised concerns about China’s rice farming offsetting projects not exceeding what is required by government regulations — the so-called surplus regulatory requirements.

Shell’s offsets

The rice farming projects first came into existence years before Shell entered the picture. Hefei Luyu decided to develop all its carbon credit projects at a meeting of their stockholders held on 29 May 2017.

Only three years later Hefei Luyu and a carbon trading consultancy based in Shanghai - its then partner in the projects - began submitting requests to Verra to have the offsetting projects validated and listed on the exchange.

Shell bursts onto the scene after Verra gave the green light. Starting from December 2021, Shell (Energy) China, a subsidiary of the oil giant, signed a series of agreements with Hefei Luyu, becoming a partner in at least nine rice farming projects.

In particular, according to the documents, Shell took on the role of an exclusive agent for the projects. Those were transferred into the Verra account of Shell (Energy) China, granting the company the right to request the issuance and transfer of carbon credits generated by the projects.

“Shell appears to be acting as a broker for the carbon credits”, Carbon Market Watch’s Gilles Dufrasne says.

“This is becoming increasingly common. Once they have access to the credits they can do what they want. They can use the credits towards their own targets or they can profit by selling them to other companies.”

In recent years, Shell has become an increasingly active player in the carbon credits industry through partnerships and direct acquisition of project developers.

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On a dedicated webpage illustrating its carbon credits portfolio, Shell says it “employs a rigorous internal screening process” to ensure it invests in activities with clear climate and environmental benefits. Shell’s environmental products division markets these carbon credits to customers needing them for compliance requirements or voluntary carbon compensation.

The portfolio lists dozens of offsets, including the nine rice farming projects in the Anhui province. Shell says they “cut greenhouse gases, increase rice productivity, and provide job opportunities - particularly for women”.

More than 450,000 credits issued by the rice farming projects in which Shell is involved have been purchased and used to compensate for emissions between June 2022 and January 2023, according to Verra’s registry.

The credits give polluters a license to emit 450,000 tons of carbon dioxide, more than Tonga emits in a year.

Over 85% of those credits ended up in the hands of PetroChina, the country’s state-owned oil and gas company. 

Verra says its investigation does not affect credits that were issued before the review began unless any excess credits were issued. "If Verra finds that excess VCUs [carbon credits] have been issued, the project proponent will be responsible for compensating for these excess VCUs," it added.

Shell and PetroChina are close commercial partners. In 2021 the companies signed a five-year deal for the supply of what they described as carbon-neutral liquified natural gas (LNG). For each cargo delivered under this agreement, PetroChina and Shell promised to offset the emissions generated using high-quality carbon credits. 

At the time environmental groups branded the initiative as 'greenwashing'. 

PetroChina did not respond to a request for comment.

The post Revealed: How Shell cashed in on dubious carbon offsets from Chinese rice paddies appeared first on Climate Home News.

Concerns were raised because Beijing rapidly accelerated plans for new coal power plants in the second half of last year in a bid to increase its energy security.

According to a report by think-tank E3G, published today, China’s coal project pipeline grew by nearly 50% in the last six months of 2022 taking the total to 250GW. It says developments in China diverge sharply from the rest of the world, where combined coal power plans shrank to 97GW over the same period – the lowest level in modern history.

China is still a global leader in the rollout of renewable energy. The country is adding clean energy projects to the grid almost as fast as the rest of the world combined.

But Leo Roberts from E3G’s coal transition programme believes China’s coal expansion is a “direct threat” to the Paris Agreement goal.

Increasing scale of the challenge

In 2015, nations agreed to pursue efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Crossing that threshold would make climate impacts increasingly harmful to people and the entire planet.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) says no new unabated coal-fired power stations can be built if the world wants to reach that goal.

“Every new coal power station that comes online increases the scale of the challenge to decarbonise the global economy,” Roberts told Climate Home News. “China’s coal boom is actually undermining significant progress away from coal in all other parts of the world.”

The rapid expansion of China’s coal power plans comes as Beijing seeks to strengthen its energy security. Geopolitical tensions affecting global energy prices and domestic supply issues have made policymakers reconsider previous intentions.

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At a climate summit in April 2021, China’s president Xi Jinping vowed the country would “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects, and strictly limit the increase in coal consumption”.

At the time his words mirrored the central government’s successful attempts to curb new coal projects. E3G analysis shows that new coal power proposals in China collapsed by 75% between 2015 and July 2022.

China’s rapid U-turn

The recent coal boom has reversed this trend and China is now a clear international outlier. It currently accounts for 72% of total global planned coal capacity, with India, Turkey and Indonesia following far behind.

The aim of China’s coal push is to prevent a repeat of the power outages that affected homes and industries last year. Heatwaves increased electricity demand for cooling, while drying up water reservoirs necessary for hydropower generation in the country’s southwestern provinces.

Meteorological agencies predict another round of record high temperatures and more droughts this year.

Preventing power outages

Many of the new coal-fired power plants are expected to meet peak summer demand driven by energy-hungry air conditioners, which last year resulted in the highest recorded momentary load.

Lauri Myllyvirta, a lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), says solar energy is able to tackle daytime power needs, but meeting night-time peak demand requires a more nuanced approach.

Still, he believes betting on coal is a suboptimal and costly strategy. “Building coal power capacity to cover peak demand just some days or weeks per year is very expensive. There is still a lot of potential to deal with peak loads with better grid management."

E3G’s Roberts said it looks as if the Chinese government’s claim that it is new building coal capacity to support peak demand is being used as a cover to push through projects. “The reality is that most of the permits handed to new coal power stations would allow them to provide baseload power, which slows down the transition from coal-to-clean."

The post Chinese coal boom a ‘direct threat’ to 1.5C goal, analysts warn appeared first on Climate Home News.

In a significant legal intervention, the Supreme People’s Court issued new guidelines that say judges should balance development and corporate emission reduction when ruling on lawsuits.

The 24-article document gives courts across China the green light to hear cases related to energy conservation and emission reduction, low-carbon technology, carbon trading and green finance, and to promote climate change mitigation and adaptation.

It sets out 11 examples of climate-related lawsuits that judges might encounter, including contractual issues, implementation of carbon emission quotas, air pollution liability and deforestation. The document says courts should focus on the carbon trading market, in particular, which has been the subject of a wide variety of legal disputes in recent years.

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Liu Zhumei, chief environmental judge at the Supreme People’s Court adjudication tribunal for environment and resources, told media that the new guidelines are a key step to implementing environmental protection pledges in the report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

This promised to boost low-carbon industries and improve the system for market-based allocation of resources, as well as reduce environmental harms.

“The guideline is also the first judicial document made by the top court to regulate case handling on the carbon peak and carbon,” she added.

‘Dual carbon’ goals

President Xi Jinping recently reaffirmed a pledge that China would peak its carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and be carbon neutral before 2060, known as the “dual carbon” goals.

But experts say decarbonising the country will be a major challenge.

A recent report by Global Energy Monitor and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found permit approval, construction and new project announcements for coal in China accelerated “dramatically” last year, with new permits reaching the highest level since 2015. Coal power capacity starting construction in China was six times bigger than all the rest of the world combined.

Central government appears to be supportive of the new projects, the report finds, with the energy regulator aiming to have 165GW of coal power construction starting in 2022-23. Chinese provinces too are expected to focus their energies on a mix of both coal and renewable power in the coming year.

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China signalled the continued importance of coal to its domestic energy security in a government work report presented at the beginning of the National People’s Congress annual meeting on Sunday.

However, minister of ecology and environment Huang Runqiu also recently said the development of industries with high energy consumption and emissions, projects in areas with fragile ecosystems and the transfer of projects with high emissions from eastern China to the west of the country would be “highly restricted”, according to China Daily.

Whether the judiciary can temper the country’s coal drive remains to be seen.

Dimitri de Boer, Asia regional director of programmes for environmental law NGO ClientEarth, told Climate Home that the involvement of courts in implementing the dual carbon goals would likely “increase the level of scrutiny on newly proposed high emissions projects, and help to ensure a smooth low-carbon energy transition”.

Proactive role

Climate litigation has been difficult in China because, unlike many other countries, it does not have specific legislation to combat climate change. But the judiciary has signalled a willingness to engage with the issue.

The 2021 Kunming Declaration called on courts to play a proactive role in tackling climate change and encouraged greater coordination of domestic and foreign rule of law.

A judgment on cryptocurrency mining last year was the first time a ruling of final effect explicitly mentioned China’s carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, and experts think it is unlikely to be the last.

Lu Xu, senior lecturer in property law at Lancaster University’s law school, said the new guidelines largely summarised what the judicial system in China was already doing but do send a strong signal to the lower courts.

“Guidelines are not law,” he said. “But lower courts will understandably pay attention to all of them. In turn this will create pressure on litigants to accept or accommodate the values of the guidelines, as lower courts would not want to decide cases in blatant defiance to them.”

The post China strengthens role of courts in meeting carbon targets appeared first on Climate Home News.

China’s southern regions need to brace for more persistent high temperatures and ensure that energy supplies are available to meet the summer demand peak, while northern regions need to prepare for heavy floods, said Song Shanyun, spokesman at the China Meteorological Administration, at a briefing on Monday.

“At present, global warming is accelerating… and under the impact of climate change, the climate system is becoming increasingly unstable,” Song said.

China was hit last June by a heatwave that lasted more than 70 days, damaging crops, drying up lakes and reservoirs, and causing devastating forest fires throughout the Yangtze river basin. In August, as many as 267 weather stations registered their highest temperatures to date.

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A sharp drop in rainfall in the southwestern regions of Sichuan and Chongqing also forced hydropower facilities to cut output. Local industries had to restrict operations and electricity deliveries to the eastern coast were also affected.

Danson Cheong, a reporter from The Straits Times, said that the soles of his shoes had melted in the heat in Sichuan’s main city Chongqing while Sohu reported that a field of grapes in the province had dried to raisins in the heat.

Hello from Chongqing, where it is 43 degrees Celsius and the heat has literally melted the soles off my feet pic.twitter.com/dNDfeOLpZa

— Danson Cheong (@dansoncj) August 22, 2022

Average temperatures in China over the whole of 2022 reached 10.5 degrees Celsius, 0.62 Celsius higher than average, Jia Xiaolong, a government expert told the same briefing on Monday, with mean temperatures in spring, summer and autumn at their highest on record.

Average rainfall in China last year was 5% lower than normal, he added.

Campaigners said that last year’s heatwave increased public awareness of the dangers of climate change, pointing to increased media coverage.

Climate attribution expert Friederike Otto told Climate Home in August: “Heatwaves in China have definitely become more common and more intense as well as longer in duration because of human-induced climate change.”

The year before was also marked by climate disasters. In July 2021, flooding in Henan province killed 25 people. Twelve drowned as flood waters filled up the subway carriage they were trapped in.

The post China warns of more floods and heatwaves in 2023 appeared first on Climate Home News.

The meeting was a gathering of countries who signed the global methane pledge, a Cop26 initiative promising to collectively reduce methane emissions by 30% in 150 countries. China is one of less than 50 nations who have not signed.

Fifteen minutes into the meeting, in a Cop27 side-room in Sharm el-Sheikh, US climate envoy John Kerry tapped the speaker on the arm and pointed off stage, where Xie was entering the room.

“Ladies and gentlemen, sorry to interrupt but through the years I have been working very closely with someone who has become a friend of mine and I want to introduce someone who has become a friend of mine – China’s special envoy Xie Zhenhua,” Kerry said.

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As the more than 70 ministers in the room applauded, Kerry passed the microphone to Xie who took off his mask and approached the lectern. The organisers scrambled to find a translator and hurried her by Xie’s side.

“Colleagues you must find it a little bit strange why the Chinese envoy on climate would attend the global methane pledge,” he said, explaining his “good friend” Kerry invited him to attend earlier in the morning.

“Even though I currently have a meeting with German foreign minister, I told her to wait a little bit so I can come and talk to all of you,” he added.

Methane strategy

As previously announced, he said China had a draft methane reduction strategy focussing on the three main sources —energy, farming and waste— and that it was passing through the legislative and administrative process.

He said China has “a little bit of a way to go so we can do surveillance and collect statistics as well as verification of our baseline”.

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Climate talks between the US and China, including on methane emissions, were scheduled to begin in September. But China cancelled the meeting after Democrat congress leader Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.

After US president Joe Biden and China’s president Xi Jinping met at the G20 in Indonesia last week, they agreed to restart some of their formal discussions.

Methane is an invisible gas but can be spotted with special cameras, measuring equipment and satellite. Sources include leaks from oil and gas, landfills and cows and sheep digesting food.

China is the largest emitter of methane in the world, almost doubling runner-up India’s methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. Neither are in the Cop26 global methane pledge, which aims to reduce emissions by 30% in 2030.

‘Double act’

Bernice Lee, a climate politics expert at Chatham House told Climate Home it was good that Xie dropped in and “had a publicly cooperative double act” with Kerry.

Lee added there is a draft methane plan which she “hoped” would be released soon. But, she said, it was “concerning that Xie did not mention coal specifically today”.

During the event, Kerry thanked Xie for showing up and reminded him of China’s commitment to work on a plan to address methane emissions. “Hopefully, hopefully in the days ahead, we are going to be able to do that,” he added.

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Norway’s environment minister Espen Barth Eide said Xie’s surprise visit was a “joy” and added that “this is really promising for our overall work not only on methane – which is important enough – but on the global climate cooperation – so that was great news”.

He added that the pledge’s 150 signatories “may be 151 with a rather large one coming along relatively soon”.

Takeshi Akahori, the Japan foreign ministry’s director-general for global issues, said he was happy about Xie’s visit because the East is “very isolated” on tackling methane emissions. “[We] look forward to having China as [a pledge member] around us.”

At the meeting, ministers announced they were launching “pathways” on reducing methane emissions from farming and from waste. A pathway on energy has already been announced.

The post China’s surprise visit to US-EU event hints at cooperation on methane appeared first on Climate Home News.

The heatwave across much of northwest, central and southeast China has lasted 72 days and counting. The previous record set in 2013 was 62 days.

The Chinese Meteorological Administration said the heatwave up to 15 August had been the “strongest” since records began in 1961 and the “coverage of the temperature of above 40C has been the largest in history”. High temperatures persist in many provinces.

Chinese and international experts blame climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.

Chen Lijuan from the National Climate Center told state media on Saturday: “Against the backdrop of global warming, heatwave will be a ‘new normal.’ The high temperature starts early, leaves late and lasts long, this will become more and more obvious in the future.”

A map of the number of high temperature days 1 June to 15 August 2022. Darker red means more high temperature days. (Photo: CMA)

Climate attribution expert Friederike Otto told Climate Home: “Heatwaves in China have definitely become more common and more intense as well as longer in duration because of human-induced climate change.”

While the heatwave has hit large areas of China, the central province of Sichuan has been worst affected. Danson Cheong, a reporter from The Straits Times, said that the soles of his shoes had melted in the heat in Sichuan’s main city Chongqing while Sohu reported that a field of grapes in the province had dried to raisins in the heat.

Chongqing is forecast to stay hot for the rest of the week before cooler, wetter weather arrives.

Hello from Chongqing, where it is 43 degrees Celsius and the heat has literally melted the soles off my feet pic.twitter.com/dNDfeOLpZa

— Danson Cheong (@dansoncj) August 22, 2022

Rainfall has been low. The hot and dry conditions have helped wildfires to spread. One Chongqing resident posted on Weibo yesterday: “The air smelled of smoke all night… when I woke up in the morning, the balcony was full of soot and large piece of things that blown over and scorched by the wind.”

The drought and heat have damaged crops too. According to data released by China’s Ministry of Emergency Management on Thursday, the drought caused a direct economic loss of 2.73 billion Chinese yuan ($400m).

The weather has caused power shortages. Sichuan relies heavily on hydropower. Dry conditions have reduced the water level of reservoirs and therefore the power generated by hydropower turbines. At the same time, hot weather has increased demand for electricity for air conditioning.

The Chongqing mountain fires are trending on Weibo, People’s Daily sent out this video two hours ago, a lot of people in comments repeating the same sentiment: please let it rain, please let it rain pic.twitter.com/7yQgg2jyd5

— Manya Koetse (@manyapan) August 21, 2022

Without electricity, factories have had to shut down, disrupting international supply chains. Suppliers to Tesla, Toyota and FoxConn closed for six days last week.

Energy analyst David Fishman said Shanghai, where he lives, has been sweating under temperatures of 38-40C every day. “I stay inside during the day”, he said. While Fishman and most people in Shanghai now have air conditioning, the technology is less common in rural areas.

The crisis has led to increasing climate awareness, campaigners said. Greenpeace East Asia’s Li Shuo told Climate Home: “Many in China are starting to call 2022 as the first year of the new climate era. The only norm might be abnormality from now on.”

Shocking pictures from China: World’s third-largest river dries up in drought pic.twitter.com/1rXKa01quq

— Daniel Moser (@_dmoser) August 23, 2022

Dmitri De Boer of ClientEarth China told Climate Home there was a lot of coverage in the Chinese media of the heatwave. “I’ve seen more and more coverage where they’re making the link with climate change and the need to accelerate the climate transition,” he said.

In the short term, the government has increased support for coal to make up for the hydropower shortage. Vice-premier Han Zheng said last week that coal use was up 15% year on year in the first two weeks of August and that he would “enhance policy support [and] take multiple measures to help coal plants ease actual difficulties”.

The post China hit by longest and strongest heatwave on record appeared first on Climate Home News.

Earlier this month, China cancelled a climate working group with the US after congressional leader Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. Beijing regards the island state as part of China, despite its independent democracy, and enforces its diplomatic isolation from the rest of the world.

As the US passed $370bn of climate measures in its Inflation Reduction Act, the US’s ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tweeted “the US is acting on climate change… [China] should follow and reconsider its suspension of climate cooperation with the US”.

The U.S. is acting on Climate Change. The recent bill passed by Congress is the largest climate investment in our history and could lead to a roughly 40% reduction in U.S. emissions by 2030. The PRC should follow+reconsider its suspension of climate cooperation with the U.S. https://t.co/BmvnaIkiib

— Ambassador Nicholas Burns (@USAmbChina) August 14, 2022

China’s foreign ministry account responded coolly. It quote-tweeted Burns saying: “Good to hear. But what matters is, can the US deliver?”

The anonymous official added: “Our suggestion: Start by lifting sanctions on Xinjiang’s photovoltaic [solar power] industry +fulfilling its pledge under the Green Climate Fund+ contributing the US’s fair share of an annual $100 billion​​ climate​ finance committed​ by developed countries to [developing] countries.”

Our suggestion: Start by lifting sanctions on Xinjiang’s photovoltaic industry +fulfilling its pledge under the Green Climate Fund+ contributing the US’s fair share of an annual $100 billion​​ climate​ finance committed​ by developed countries to deleveping countries.

— Spokesperson发言人办公室 (@MFA_China) August 16, 2022

The public sparring continued, with Burns replying: “Combatting climate change is a shared responsibility. [China] accounts for 27% of global emissions, the US 11% so why doesn’t [China] resume our climate dialogue? We’re ready.”

The Inflation Reduction Act is now law, you can bet will meet our commitments. But combatting climate change is a shared responsibility: PRC accounts for 27% of global emissions, the U.S. 11%, so why doesn’t the PRC resume our climate dialogue? We’re ready. https://t.co/Z3XOaYIUWb

— Ambassador Nicholas Burns (@USAmbChina) August 17, 2022

The cancelled working group would have brought together experts and politicians from both countries to collaborate on issues like methane emission reductions, clean electricity, the circular economy and climate action from cities.

US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns called on Beijing to “follow” Washington (Pic: Flickr/Brookings Institution)

The Inflation Reduction Act is the US’ largest ever climate spending package. Princeton University’s Repeat project estimates the bill will cut US emissions by 42% between 2005 and 2030. Previously, it was on course for a 27% reduction and it’s target is 50-52%.

The Biden Administration has seized the moment to call on other big emitters to raise their game. But negotiators from emerging economies told Climate Home that while US action could help bring down clean technology costs for everyone, they needed direct support to increase their ambition.

The US lags other developed countries in providing climate finance, including through the UN’s flagship Green Climate Fund. President Joe Biden promised more, but has yet to deliver, and his chances of getting funds through Congress are expected to shrink after November’s midterm elections.

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China’s call to end sanctions on the solar industry of the Chinese region of Xinjiang is unlikely to be heeded. The US and independent experts say that quartz, a key ingredient in  polysilicon and therefore solar panels, is mined in Xinjiang by forced labourers from the Uyghur ethnic minority.

The US has banned imports of all goods made in Xinjiang and customs official have seized shipments of solar panels suspected to contain quartz and polysilicon from Xinjiang at the US border.

A 2021 report by Sheffield Hallam University researchers found that Uyghur people were forced to produce quartz and polysilicon under China’s “labour transfer” and “surplus labour” programmes. The Chinese government claims these work programmes are voluntary.

Around 95% of the world’s solar modules rely on solar-grade polysilicon, the report says, and 45% of this is produced in Xinjiang. This polysilicon can be found in solar panels produced and used anywhere in the world.

Burns’s claim that China’s emissions are far higher than the US’s is true but only part of the story. China has over four times as many people, so the average Chinese resident is responsible for half the emissions of an American.

According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, China spent around $300bn a year on the energy transition last year while the US spent $120bn, counting public and private investments.

The post China responds coolly to US climate bill, rejecting a call to resume cooperation appeared first on Climate Home News.

Last year, Chinese foreign foreign minister Wang Yi warned it was an “oasis” which risks being taken over by the desert of broader geopolitical enmity.

After Nancy Pelosi’s recent courageous/provocative trip to Taiwan, the oasis waters have turned to sand as China cancelled all climate talks with the US.

At first glance, a breakdown in talks between the world’s two biggest polluters sounds like a huge deal. But is it?

The two sides don’t need to talk to each other about cutting carbon in order to cut carbon.

The US Senate passed the country’s biggest climate bill ever on Sunday and Chinese pressure to pass that would have been counter-productive, to say the least.

And a bit of space-race style competition on international finance for solar panels and seawalls could benefit the developing world. Deadly floods in Pakistan show how much this money for adapting to climate change is needed.

On the other hand, the breakdown means experts from both sides won’t be gathering next month to swap notes on methane reductions, clean electricity and climate actions by cities.

It’s likely to make Cop27 more combative too, which will be a problem for the UN’s new climate chief, Simon Stiell.

The former environment minister of Grenada got the job last night, bucking expectations that the job would go to a woman from Africa or Asia.

This week’s stories

• Grenada’s Simon Stiell set to be appointed UN climate chief
• Pakistan struggles to rebuild after deadly flash floods 
• Colombia’s new president calls for debt swap to protect the Amazon
• ‘We are not ready’: Divisions deepen over rush to finalise deep sea mining rules
• US-China climate working group cancelled after Pelosi’s Taiwan visit 
• Chinese companies seek global carbon market for green hydrogen
• US-funded trees ‘not likely to survive’ in Haiti when project ends 

The post China-US climate “oasis” turns to desert – Climate Weekly appeared first on Climate Home News.

After months of preparatory talks, policymakers and experts were supposed to hold their first official meeting next month to discuss cooperation on topics like methane emission reductions, clean electricity, the circular economy and climate action from cities.

But a diplomatic spat has led China to suspend the working group. Thom Woodroofe, of the Asia Society think tank, lobbied for the group to be set up and called its suspension “a great shame”.

Last Tuesday, Pelosi visited Taiwan along with a Congressional delegation and pledged to “defend its freedom in the face of aggression”.

The Chinese government, which considers Taiwan as part of China, then issued a statement saying it was “suspending China-US talks on climate change” along with military and legal cooperation.

US climate envoy John Kerry, who has led talks with China, said this was “both disappointing and misguided” and “the entire world will suffer the consequences if we don’t, together, lead the way on climate action”.

From day one, the United States has made clear that our climate engagement with the PRC should remain separate from the other tough issues our two countries face. (1/6)

— Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry (@ClimateEnvoy) August 5, 2022

Kerry has tried to keep climate talks separate from geopolitical and human rights discussions. But China’s foreign minister Wang Yi warned last September that while climate talks are an “oasis”, “surrounding the oasis is a desert and the oasis could be desertified very soon”.

While climate diplomacy experts broadly agreed the suspension of talks between the world’s two largest emitters would hinder climate action, they were divided on its significance.

Some pointed to the role US-China cooperation can play in speeding up emissions reductions in the two nations and on moving forward broader international climate talks.

Greenpeace East Asia advisor Li Shuo told Climate Home News : “The two putting their weight together matters a great deal. One upcoming case in point would be Cop27. Expect more turbulent politics there as a result of today”.

But others said both countries would continue to reduce their emissions domestically and that some aspects of climate action, like international finance, could be sped up by competition between the two superpowers on who gives the most.

Chinese companies seek global carbon market for green hydrogen

E3G’s US-China analyst Alex Hacbarth told Climate Home: “Both were acting on climate outside of bilateral talks and will continue to do so. China, like the US, is not immune to climate impacts and will continue to act because it is in its national interest to do so.”

Chatham House futures research director Bernice Lee added: “This fallout need not be the deal-breaker… ultimately it is both their self-interest to accelerate ambitious domestic climate action”.

The most immediate short-term consequence is that the planned first meeting of a revived US-China climate working group is unlikely to go ahead next month.

The group was set up under US president Barack Obama and helped bring about co-operation which led to the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015 before it was scrapped by Donald Trump’s administration.

US-funded trees ‘not likely to survive’ in Haiti when project ends

In 2021, president Joe Biden’s climate envoy Kerry held a series of meetings with his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua. These led to the signing of a surprise joint agreement at Cop26 in November.

Beijing and Washington agreed to set up a “working group on enhancing climate action in the 2020s which will meet regularly…focusing on enhancing concrete actions in this decade”.

The group’s work “may include”, the agreement said, discussions of policies and technicalities, identification of programmes and projects both sides are interested in and meetings of government officials and experts.

Two sources with knowledge of the discussions said that methane, clean electricity and action by cities were likely to be on the agenda. One of these sources and a third source said that  forestry is also on the agenda. Methane, electricity and forests are thought to be US priorities while action by cities is understood to have been pushed by China.

Woodroofe said the working group would be overseen by Kerry and Xie but that several work streams were being led by technical specialists.

Egypt pitches for climate funding in list of African projects to be showcased at Cop27

Woodroofe said this format “allows you to bring technical specialists to the table and actually for both sides to concretely see the benefits of cooperation because you have discussions which are genuinely designed to help both sides on how to reduce methane emissions further or what to to do to accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles”.

He added: “Folks were wondering why it had been nine months [since Cop26] and there hadn’t been any convening of that group but my understanding is that it was quite imminent and was due to happen probably in September.”

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The project uses methane released during the coal mining operation to generate 120MW of electricity. Since 60% of this coal gas has a concentration of 3-8% methane, it makes these sort of initiatives profitable.

“The challenge is to deal with the remaining 40% of low methane concentration coal gas,” said Yang Fuqiang, a senior researcher at Climate Change and Energy Transition Programme at Peking University in Beijing.

China’s energy sector, driven by its coal operations, accounted for a fifth of total methane emissions from the global energy sector last year – making it, by far, the largest methane emitter.

The government has introduced strong policies to prevent the direct release of methane into the atmosphere. But it is struggling to motivate coal mining giants to initiate methane mitigation projects.

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In 2008, China made it mandatory for coal mining companies to capture and utilise coal mine methane above 30% concentration.

Companies that cannot capture high-density methane from coal have to flare the gas to prevent its release into the atmosphere. The government further introduced incentives for methane recovery.

But industry insiders say that a lack of monitoring of methane emissions coupled with the high cost of capture technologies deter the development of more methane-cutting projects.

Detecting methane emissions requires tracking on the ground and from the sky using drones, planes and satellites. These monitoring systems alone are costly and need huge investment.

“The data uncertainty of methane emissions is a long-existing problem,” said Ran Ze, senior manager at Environmental Defense Fund, China (EDF). “It’s crucial to enhance monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) to detect the exact status of methane emissions.”

Global hub launched to help countries slash methane emissions

The US-China joint declaration announced at Cop26 in Glasgow, UK and China’s pledge to become carbon neutral by 2060 have prompted policymakers to bolster efforts to capture methane and increase its share in the country’s energy mix.

Cutting methane emissions from the energy sector, which has a warming potential 80 times that of carbon dioxide, is increasingly seen as a quick win. At Cop26, more than 108 countries signed up to reduce its emissions under an initiative launched jointly by the US and the EU.

China stayed away from the initiative but, in its joint declaration with the US, committed to work towards limiting its methane emissions.

According to official data from 2014, the country’s energy sector contributed 24.7 million tonnes or 45% of national methane emissions. Coal mines alone were responsible for around 38% of emissions – unlike in the US and the EU where a majority of methane emissions come from gas pipelines.

“If China wants to tap the potential of methane and curb its emissions, then undoubtedly coal mines are a priority area,” said Yang.

Migrant workers suffer heat stress during Ramadan in Arabian Gulf

China is expected to release a national action plan for cutting methane emissions ahead of the Cop27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November.

The success of China’s methane emission reduction policies hinges on a comprehensive approach.

Besides monitoring, coal mining companies will need cost-effective technologies for methane mitigation, according to EDF. There are ways to recover coal mine methane with a concentration as low as 0.5%, but they are expensive.

And with China planning to drastically cut down coal extraction as a part of its pledge to become carbon neutral by 2060, mining companies only have 38 years to recover their cost from investments.

While the government is likely to invest in methane monitoring, reporting and verification, mining companies will face the uphill task of finding low-cost methane mitigation technology.

“Methane concentration varies in coal mines here,” said Meian Chen, programme director at innovative Green Development Program, Beijing.  “For this, there will be a need for a tailored approach, using cost-effective technologies and policy support, to capture methane from these mines.”

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But, as gold-medal winning Chinese-American teenager Eileen Gu spun four and a half times in the air, the backdrop was three Olympic-ring branded cooling towers.

On social media, it was mocked as “dystopian”, a “hellscape” and a symbol of climate change. Users speculated that it was a nuclear power or coal plant.

It’s actually the disused Shougang steel mill. Previously the city’s biggest polluter and one of its biggest employers, it shut down before the 2008 Olympics due to concerns over air pollution.

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Asked about the mockery, Beijing-based Greenpeace activist Li Shuo told Climate Home News: “I can’t comment on other people’s taste… For me, it is breathtaking. Just stunning,” he said.

The cooling towers were compared to The Simpson’s fictional Springfield nuclear power plant but Li said: “There are at least two themes that are meaningful if one bothers to dig a little deeper than Homer Simpson”.

First, he said, “it tells people that sports could be close to you, not necessarily in the Alps thousands of miles away”.

Second, he said, “it highlights a city’s transition towards a low-carbon economy and the tangible progress that can be achieved”.

Referring to London’s disused coal plant turned art gallery, he asked: “How come Tate Modern is cool and Big Air Shougang is not?”

London’s Tate Modern used to be a coal power plant but is now a modern art gallery (Photo: ReservasdeCoches.com/Flickr)

Over the last two decades, China’s capital has reduced its air pollution significantly by curbing coal smoke from heavy industry and home heating.

The area around the steel mill, which was built in 1919, was tranformed into a destination for tourism and cultural events, hosting weddings, electronic music festivals and breweries.

Engineering firm Arup, who redeveloped the site, claims it did so in a low-carbon way with green buildings, transport and energy. The company also claims the area’s design helps absorb rainwater, reducing the risk of flooding.

While Beijing’s air quality has benefitted from the mill’s closure though, the atmosphere hasn’t. The Shougang company opened a new mill a few hours’ drive out of town in Hebei province. So coal is still being burned to make steel, just not in Beijing.

Steel plants (red and orange) have moved from Beijing to neighbouring Hebei province (Photo: Global Energy Monitor/Global steel plant tracker)

On top of this, according to Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air analyst Lauri Myllyvirta, some of the pollution wasn’t banished far enough away for Beijingers.

“All the heavy industry from Beijing was moved to different parts of Hebei [before the 2008 olympics], assuming that’s so far away – 300/400 km – that it is not going to affect Beijing any more,” he said .

“But in the following half a decade the industry mushroomed to such a size in Hebei that that became a much bigger problem for Beijing’s air quality,” he added.

The games’ environmental critics have pointed to the use of energy and water intensive fake snow, both at the venues in Beijing and at the Zhangjiakou ski slopes, a three hour drive north of Beijing.

This is the Winter Olympics in the era of climate breakdown. The first winter games to rely almost entirely on fake snow. The hills outside Beijing are snow-free, so 49 million gallons of water and 300 snow guns have been used to create this. pic.twitter.com/wYtB6qMGII

— XR Cambridge (@xr_cambridge) February 6, 2022

Fake snow is needed because, although it is cold, the area is dry. Evaluting Beijing’s bid, the International Olympic Committee said: “Northern China suffers from severe water stress and the Beijing-Zhangjiakou area is becoming increasingly arid.” It blamed this stress on climate change, intensive industrial and agricultural use and high domestic demand.

Beijing is not the first host city to struggle for snow. As early as 1964, Austrian volunteers had to carry and hand-pack ice into snow for the Innsbruck games. New York’s Lake Placid was the first games to use snow machines in 1980. In recent years, their use has become routine. They were used in Vancouver in 2010, Sochi in 2014 and PyeongChang in 2018.

But Beijing is the first games to rely completely on fake snow. Strasbourg University geographer Carmen de Jong told the Wall Street Journal that making this snow could use two million cubic metres of water, worsening the region’s water stress.

Turning water to snow is also energy-intensive although the venues’ developer claims the snow canons are powered by nearby wind farms.

The trend towards fake snow is likely to intensify at future Winter Olympics as the climate heats up. Of the 21 past venues, a study by the University of Waterloo found that only 12 will be cold enough to host it with real snow again in the 2050s, even if the world meets its Paris climate targets.

Places like Russia’s black sea resort of Sochi and the Alpine towns of Grenoble, Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Chamonix will be too warm, they found.

This study only took into account temperature, not rainfall levels. So it included Beijing in its list of  eight hosts which will stay “climate reliable” even in a high-emissions scenario in the 2080s.

The next games will be hosted by the Italian city of Milan and the nearby ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo. According to Waterloo University, this will be reliably cold enough for snow.

The post Cooling towers, fake snow: What the Beijing Winter Olympics says about climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

At the National People’s Congress session on Friday, as heavy smog settled over Beijing, Chinese premier Li Keqiang presented a summary of the country’s economic plan to 2025.

The document will shape China’s emissions trajectory and gives an insight into how Beijing is planning to get on track to achieve its climate goals of peaking its emissions before 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2060.

And for analysts, the answer is with baby steps.

“This is much closer to continuing current trend than getting on track to carbon neutrality,” Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, told Climate Home News. “Clearly there’s no preparedness to put a stop to coal expansion.”

In his address, Li said China will “expedite” its transition to a green development model with “a major push to develop new energy sources” while “promoting the clean and efficient use of coal”.

This reflects ongoing contradictions between expanding the carbon economy and promoting green growth, Myllyvirta said.

Zhang Shuwei, chief economist at the Draworld Environment Research Center, said the plan fell short of expectations on climate, with details on how Beijing is planning to accelerate the economy’s decarbonisation largely missing.

“The international community expected China’s climate policy to jump, but in reality it is still crawling,” he said.

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Researchers have said China needs to stop building new coal-fired power plants after 2020 if it is to align its policy with its long-term carbon neutrality goal.

China’s five-year plan is “underwhelming and shows little sign of a concerted switch away from a future coal lock-in,” said Swithin Lui, of NewClimate Institute, and the China lead for Climate Action Tracker. The independent watchdog rates China’s efforts as “highly insufficient” to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

He said more detailed five-year plans for the energy sector and on climate commitments, which are expected in the second half of the year, will need to include a cap on coal use.

The plan ends the practice of setting a five-year GDP target, usually the cornerstone of the document, settling instead for a 6% growth target for 2021.

With economic growth still tightly linked to emissions, the abandonment of a five-year GDP target could help reduce pressure on provinces to pursue aggressive growth measures that tend to favour carbon-intensive investments.

However, this makes projecting CO2 emissions growth over the period to 2025 more difficult. Sustained 5% growth could translate to emissions rising 10% by 2025, estimated Refinitiv analyst Yan Qin.

Japan, US exposed as UN chief urges G7 to commit to 2030 coal exit

Chinese premier Li announced a target of reaching 20% of renewable and nuclear energy in total energy consumption by 2020. President Xi Jinping said in December that China would increase its share of non-fossil fuels in its energy mix to 25% by 2030.

Under the plan, China commits to reduce carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 18% between 2020 and 2025 – the same target that was set in the previous five-year cycle. Carbon intensity fell by 18.8% between 2015 and 2020.

There is no target for limiting total energy consumption and no overall carbon emissions cap, which campaigners had been calling for.

This leaves room for emissions to continue to increase to 2025, deferring the heavy lifting on decarbonisation until later this decade.

With growth averaging 5.5% annually over the period, emissions could be allowed to grow by more than 1% every year and still meet the 2025 targets, Myllyvirta estimated. A strong and sustained rebound in economic activity could see emissions increase faster than in the past five years, he found.

And China’s economy is expected to rebound following a period of low growth from the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the International Energy Agency, a carbon-intensive recovery saw emissions in China rise 7% in December 2020 compared with the same time a year earlier. This was largely driven by a surge in coal consumption and steel and cement production in the second half of 2020.

Methane emissions from Russian pipelines surged during the coronavirus pandemic

Li Shuo, of Greenpeace East Asia, told Climate Home the plan reflected “a sense of uncertainty” from Chinese policymakers regarding the country’s economic performance in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and a changing geopolitical environment for addressing climate change.

The plan, he said, raised more questions than it answered and deferred key decisions. A sectoral plan for the energy sector and action plan for peaking emissions by 2030 are expected to give more details.

“Considering China’s habit of under-committing and over-delivering five year plans, these targets will hopefully hedge against a surge in further emission growth. But industrial groups will certainly point to the modest carbon intensity target as an excuse for business as usual,” he said.

The post China makes no shift away from coal in five-year plan as it ‘crawls’ to carbon neutrality appeared first on Climate Home News.

Those expecting a repeat of President Xi Jinping’s surprise announcement last week that China was aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 were left disappointed.

Xi outlined no grand plan for reversing nature loss and environmental destruction when he addressed the high-level biodiversity event on Wednesday. 

“The goal is to seek a kind of modernisation that promotes harmonious coexistence of man and nature,” he told political leaders in a pre-recorded message, insisting that economic development could take place while preserving the environment.

“It falls to all of us to act together and turn the earth into a beautiful homeland,” he added, calling on countries to strike an agreement during major biodiversity talks in Kunming, provisionally scheduled for May 2021, when governments are due to agree on a new framework to halt the decline of biodiversity beyond 2020. 

The UN summit on biodiversity convened by UN secretary general António Guterres on the sidelines of the general assembly aimed to build political momentum and bolster financial commitments ahead of the talks in Kunming. 

The UN hoped the event would be a platform for countries to announce concrete action to stem the decline of the planet’s biodiversity. But beyond speeches, few leaders came with a plan.

UN summit highlights $700bn funding gap to restore nature

“If the summit is nothing but rhetoric, then we are repeating the mistakes made in Aichi,” Li Shuo, Beijing-based senior energy and climate officer at Greenpeace, told Climate Home. 

“The lack of substance can’t hide the fact that political will on global nature protection is low,” Li tweeted during the summit. 

On Monday, 64 political leaders and the European Union launched a “leader’s pledge for nature” with a 10-point plan to halt global biodiversity destruction.

The pledge has now been signed by more than 70 countries, but China is not one of them. Australia, Brazil, Russia and the US, whose governments all control vast swathes of land and oceans, have not signed up either. 

Campaigners say that without concrete commitments, next year’s talks will fall flat.

A UN report earlier this month concluded that the world has missed all 20 biodiversity targets for 2020 agreed in Aichi, Japan, in 2010. Funding shortfalls were highlighted as a significant barrier to meeting the targets and campaigners fear the failure could repeat itself if countries do not raise more funds ahead of the talks in Kunming.

UN agencies have warned that countries needed to commit an additional $700 billion per year to reverse the destruction of nature. But at a funding conference on Monday, only Germany made a firm commitment to increase its funding for protecting biodiversity in developing countries.

Bolsonaro shifts blame for unprecedented Brazilian wetland fires

“China should provide stronger leadership in the current Kunming process. It is crystal clear that the negotiations are heading to an Aichi 2.0. If one looks at the Aichi round, it is essentially a rhetorical boom in 2010 followed by an implementation bust over the subsequent decade,” Li told CHN. 

Other major emitters have also been criticised for their lack of commitment.

The US did not even send a representative to the UN event. And Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro told the UN in a statement last week the country was already subject to “the best environmental legislation on the planet”. 

On Tuesday, Bolsonaro revoked regulations that protect tropical mangroves and other coastal ecosystems. 

“Their deliberate plans to actively destroy nature makes both the Trump and Bolsonaro administrations climate villains,” said Arlo Hemphill, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace US.

Australia was also noticeably absent from the UN biodiversity summit. A government spokesperson said Australia would not agree to environmental targets “unless we can tell the Australian people what they will cost to achieve and how we will achieve it”.

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If a downturn in air pollution observed by satellites over China in February lasts a year, premature deaths from air pollution could fall by about 50,000 to 100,000, scientists at the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo (Cicero) have said.

The coronavirus pandemic has reduced demand for coal and other fossil fuels linked to a closure of factories and less road traffic, both in China and in other parts of the world.

Kristin Aunan, a senior researcher at Cicero, said the possibility of reduced deaths from air pollution was in no way to detract from the severity of the pandemic.

“But we have to remember that air pollution kills people, especially vulnerable elderly people,” she told Climate Home News.

Putting the brakes on – Climate Weekly

So far coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has infected about 170,000 people worldwide and killed 6,500, with cases surging daily in many nations.

Aunan was the lead researcher of a 2018 study that estimated that between 1.15 million and 1.24 million people in China die from air pollution every year.

And the World Health Organisation (WHO) says air pollution kills about seven million people worldwide annually by causing heart disease, lung cancers and respiratory infections.

The Cicero researchers focused on fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, described by the WHO as the most harmful type of pollution of 2.5 micrometres or less across.

Earlier this month, Copernicus, the EU’s Earth Observation Programme, said satellite measurements showed that levels of PM2.5 pollution over China in February 2020 were down by about 20-30% compared to the average for the same month in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

Based on those observations, Aunan and her colleagues wrote that if PM2.5 concentrations “over China remains at a level 20-30% below the baseline situation for a full year, the annual avoided number of premature deaths could amount to 54,000 – 109,000”.

That would correspond to a reduction in deaths from air pollution of 5% to 10%.

She cautioned that the figures were highly uncertain and that the impact would be far less if China’s economy recovers quickly, especially if Beijing seeks to stimulate the economy by burning more fossil fuels.

Nasa has also cited evidence that the decline in air pollution over China “is at least partly related to the economic slowdown following the outbreak of coronavirus”.

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A Copernicus official said the agency would issue satellite images of Italy this week to illustrate how a nationwide lockdown has affected air pollution in the European nation hardest hit by coronavirus.

The European Public Health Alliance, a non-governmental group advocating better health for all, said in a statement that all air pollution aggravated risks in Europe from the virus.

“Covid-19 has also highlighted the need for a long-term EU strategy to address Europe’s invisible epidemic of non-communicable diseases, and measures to tackle air pollution,” it said.

It added that “patients suffering from conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, or respiratory diseases have proved to be particularly vulnerable to the outbreak”.

The European Commission says that more than 400,000 people die prematurely from air pollution every year in the EU.

Aunan told CHN she hoped efforts to combat coronavirus would also put a spotlight on wider health risks such as pollution and climate change, which is disrupting food and water supplies with heatwaves, droughts and floods.

“When we look into the future for climate change and air pollution… all these risk factors are continuously taking lives,” she said.

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In a paper published on Sunday, the National Centre for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation (NCSC) said China had “the potential and conditions for improving” its Paris commitment, known as a ‘nationally determined contribution’ or NDC.

The NCSC recommended the government “evaluate and demonstrate the options for updating the 2030 nationally determined contributions in 2020”.

The NCSC, an official government thinktank, is one of the leading influencers of Chinese policy in the international climate arena. But observers said the paper did not represent government policy.

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China’s current pledge to the Paris deal is to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. But for years there have been signs that this target would be achieved early.

The country achieved its 2020 goal, to cut emissions 45% for each unit of economic growth (carbon intensity), by the end of last year. Given this faster-than-expected economic transition, China’s lead climate envoy Xie Zhenhua said last month that he thought the 2030 target would be achieved.

In that context, the NCSC said an early increase to China’s Paris pledge was possible.

Last week, Greenpeace analysis found China’s carbon emissions for the first three months of 2018 had increased faster than in recent years. But the NGO’s senior climate and energy policy officer Li Shuo told Climate Home News this did not threaten China’s 2020 or 2030 targets.

“On one hand emissions are indeed growing at a very rapid rate, but on the other hand it’s not growing to the extent of reversing our previous assessment that China is going to overachieve its 2020 and 2030 targets,” said Li. “As a result there is an open question in front of China, which is: do you want to ratchet up your NDC or not?”

Under the 2015 Paris climate deal, countries volunteered their own pollution cuts and other climate change efforts. These pledges are due to be revisited and updated in 2025. There will also be a moment in 2020 for progressive players to deliver new submissions. It is not yet clear how many will be ready to show increased ambition.

China: New environment ministry unveiled, with huge staff boost

Almost no country has volunteered cuts that represent a fair share of efforts to keep the world from warming by 2C. This means there is pressure on many countries to increase their pledges before 2025. But few want to commit to sharper cuts unless others join them.

The NCSC paper noted China’s role on the global stage was changing and acknowledged its “image as a responsible, big country” – a reference to Chinese president Xi Jinping’s 2018 New Year speech – came with pressure to lead on issues such as climate change.

With its decarbonisation outstripping its promises, China could put pressure on other countries without having to make major changes to its current direction, said Greenpeace’s Li.

“China is actually in the position, if you look at its real economy, to ratchet up, so why do we waste that opportunity?” he said.

But the NCSC also warned updating China’s pledge could be seen as an admission that China’s original Paris commitments were not ambitious, undermining any diplomatic boost. US president Donald Trump has frequently criticised the Paris accord for not eliciting tough enough action from China.

The NCSC laid out several ways China could update its pledge. These included increasing China’s emissions targets, providing clearer information regarding its emissions to the global community, expanding the targets to include greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide or committing to new policies.

The paper also discussed China’s approach to the mandatory upgrading of its pledge in 2025. It said China’s 2025 revision should set a new 2035 target. This would synchronise the targets with the year China’s government has set for the country to achieve “modernisation”.

Spain: New government joins call to strengthen EU climate targets

The NCSC is a government-affiliated thinktank. Its director and the paper’s lead author is Chai Qimin, who negotiates as part of the Chinese government delegation during UN climate talks.

When it comes to international climate policy, said Greenpeace’s Li, “the NCSC is one of the leading, if the not the leading, agency to provide guidance or advice to the Chinese government”.

Isabel Hilton, CEO of chinadialogue, warned against placing too much significance on the paper. “This is a description of process rather than any policy initiative. Thinktanks contribute ideas, but don’t make policy,” she said.

Any decision on altering the country’s Paris pledge would pass through the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and may be considered by the State Council or even president Xi, said Li.

He said the NCSC paper should not be seen as an adoption of any policy direction, but was nonetheless significant as it showed the discussion evolving.

It comes as Xie prepares for a series of climate talks with ministers from around the world in Berlin and Brussels. Cooperation between the EU and China is seen as critical to the success of this year’s UN climate summit.

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The post China should consider increasing Paris climate pledge early – government thinktank appeared first on Climate Home News.

Investment decisions made now in developing countries will lock in the type of infrastructure in buildings, transport and energy that sustain societies for many years to come.

The burgeoning populations, and increasingly high-consuming middle class segments, of developing countries means the implications of these decisions, along with the associated emission of greenhouse gases, have implications for everybody.

That is why the question of how China’s burgeoning investment across the developing world will be used is so important. The growing volume of overseas Chinese investment is clear.

Between 2004 and 2013, China’s overseas investments increased 13.7 times, from $45 billion to $613 billion – with developing countries soaking up a considerable amount of this dramatic rise.

Report: What China’s investment binge in Latin America means for the climate 

Despite indications China’s economic juggernaut is slowing, with recent government predictions pointing to about 5% growth from 2021 to 2025, slowing demand at home may actually accelerate a desire to seek overseas investment opportunities.

Funding considerations being taken now by the new, Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) offers a timely juncture to consider how China’s growing international investment power will alter our planet.

With initial capital of US$100 billion, the AIIB is nearly two-thirds the size of the decades-old Asian Development Bank, which is led by Japan. China is providing some 30% of the AIIB’s initial capital.

While China displayed wily diplomatic skills in attracting an initial membership of 57 countries, the United States and Japan are notable in their absence.

Beijing has been careful to leave the door open for Washington and Tokyo, while at the same time refuting claims the bank’s formation heralds an attempt to forge a new global, financial order.

Report: China’s largest bank to screen loans for environmental risk 

In earlier declining an offer to join, the US cited concerns the AIIB would have looser lending standards in environmental and social areas than other international financial institutions.

International power balancing aside, the bank’s emergence has been accompanied by widespread and, arguably, legitimate concerns over possible environmental implications – based on past Chinese investment practices.

Environmental NGO Friends of the Earth found in a report published two years ago many Chinese banks investing internationally were not following appropriate environmental and social safeguards.

More recently, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, another NGO, in calling on the AIIB to follow international standards cites its recording of hundreds of local protests about the operation of Chinese extractive firms from Myanmar to Zambia.

Chinese banks have come under unfavourable scrutiny over key environmental concerns in developing countries, ranging from resource extraction to dam building.

Report: China five-year plan hints at deeper carbon cuts 

Chinese investment in African nations’ forest industries, for example, has been found in many cases to be contributing to deforestation and illegal logging.

China’s overseas investment in Asia has also led to criticism resulting in a Chinese-funded dam being cancelled in Myanmar in 2011 and serious concerns over widespread flooding accompanying the construction of Jatigede Dam in Indonesia’s West Java in September last year.

But the AIIB’s membership of countries known for their progressive approaches to environmental and development issues, such as the UK and Germany, makes it more likely the bank will avoid investing in projects that degrade the environmental and social systems of recipient countries.

Indeed, observers say the AIIB has taken many NGO concerns into account, and that it is too early to judge the bank’s stance on environmental issues, including climate change.

“We should give them the benefit of the doubt and see how the AIIB operates in practice,” said Martijn Wilder, head of global environmental markets and climate change at international law firm Baker & McKenzie.

Report: China state control threatens climate agenda 

Athena Ballesteros, Director of the World Resource Institute’s Finance Centre, agreed the AIIB is likely to fill a need for funding infrastructure projects in Asia, but stressed these must be low-carbon.

On the AIIB’s insistence its investments will be “lean, clean and green,” Ballesteros called for vigilance in monitoring the delicate balance of environmental and social concerns with keeping financing transaction costs low for energy and infrastructure projects.

To many observers, the AIIB’s approach to funding projects on the basis of whether they add or decrease greenhouse gases will be a major test of the bank’s approach to environmental integrity.

Ballesteros is on the whole optimistic about the prospects of the AIIB being able to forge a new path of low-carbon development in the region, corresponding to an increased international urgency to tackle climate change.

“As the new kid on the block, the AIIB can help change the way Asia produces and consumes energy and, it can help shape the way we build infrastructure,” she said.

Report: US, China to approve Paris climate deal in 2016

Calvin Quek, a Greenpeace sustainable finance expert, said the amount of international focus on the AIIB means it is likely to follow best environmental practice in funding projects in developing countries.

An increasingly interconnected world, not just in terms of shared environmental problems but also border-crossing communications channels, means international scrutiny is likely to follow the AIIB’s investment decisions carefully.

It is also likely, given the international momentum on climate action following a successful agreement at the seminal UN meeting in Paris at the end of last year, the AIIB will be encouraged and win accolades from investing in low-carbon technology.

It is also becoming increasingly clear that good business sense is drawing funders away from high-emissions and financially risky fossil fuel investments.

The Chinese Government recently forecast coal use in China will fall for a third year in 2016. Partly due to declining industrial output amid a slowdown from past rapid economic growth, it is also driven by public anger at air pollution red alerts.

Domestic pollution concerns, aversion to fossil fuel financial risks and a desire to seek international prestige in sustainability may then lead China to lead from the front on climate change in targeting low-carbon AIIB investments, rather than being pushed from behind.

Simon Pollock is a climate analyst based in Canberra, Australia

The post Renminbi power: Will China’s wallet shape the planet? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Lawmakers passed the 13th five-year plan on Wednesday. China’s leaders at the start of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing (Flickr/ Remko Tanis)

By Alex Pashley

China has revealed it may strengthen its climate targets, signalling an earlier peak in carbon emissions.

The world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter said it would “implement and enhance” its climate strategy in its 13th five-year plan released on Thursday.

China committed to arrest CO2 growth before 2030 and boost clean energy to 20% of its energy mix in its contribution to the Paris climate agreement.

The admission in the lengthy document would make China the first major emitter to state it will ramp up its climate ambition in the next five years.

“The word ‘enhance’ is particularly strong in this instance, and as with much of the government’s communication, is carefully chosen,” said Li Shuo, senior climate policy adviser at Greenpeace East Asia.

The EU has refused to deepen a 2030 target to cut emissions 40% on 1990 levels after a lack of consensus among its members.

The 2016-2020 plan is the 13th development blueprint set out in China’s command economy. It sets targets for a range of economic and social indicators from GDP growth to hazardous air pollution.

The 195 countries that signed the Paris climate agreement agreed to review national climate pledges at five-year intervals to cap global warming to “well below 2C” and “pursue efforts” to hold it to 1.5C this century.

Some analysts question if China’s emissions have already topped out – 14 years early – on falling coal use and a surge in renewable power.

Leading forecaster the International Energy Agency said China’s energy-related emissions fell 1.5% in 2015. Coal consumption declined for a second straight year by 3.7%, according to the statistics bureau.

Green push

China already has a 2020 goal of 15% of energy to be supplied by non-fossil sources. Targets exist to raise installed nuclear to 58 gigawatts, solar PV from 43GW in 2015 to 150-200GW and wind from 145GW to 250GW.

China has said it will cap its energy consumption, and lay-off 1.8 million workers from its steel and coal sectors, as it battles air pollution and its economy shifts away from heavy industry.

“We have selected the steel and coal sectors to start with the effort of cutting overcapacity and at the same time we will also avoid massive layoffs,” China premier Li Keqiang told reporters in Beijing.

Report: China top officials outline greener five year plan 

Elsewhere the plan – which forms a blueprint for development through 2020 – outlined a cap for energy consumption of 4.3 billion tonnes of ‘coal equivalent’. China burnt through over 4bn last year, and that will act as a ceiling. 

State news agency Xinhua called it the “greenest” one ever. “The newfound zeal for green development comes against a backdrop of China’s economic shift from the old “growth at all cost” model, which has left air, water and soil tainted, to a sustainable one,” it said.

China will target a 15% reduction in energy per unit of GDP by 2020 on 2015 levels (down from 16% in 2010-15), and aim to cut carbon intensity 18% (up from 17%) in the same period.

That aligns it with a 2030 target to cut carbon intensity by 60-65% while the economy seeks to expand at least 6.5% a year.

That results in a “significant slowdown” in annual emissions growth from 5.4% registered from 2005-2014, to a 2.3% rate over the next 5 years, the London-based Carbon Tracker NGO projects. 

Emissions of two key pollutants, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide must fall 15% by 2020. Air quality of all cities must meet “good” or “excellent” standards 80% of the time.

Report: China’s Five Year Plan to radically tighten air pollution targets 

There will be lay-offs as the country heads towards “de-industrialisation and urbanisation,” premier Li said, with some 1.8 million workers in steel and coal sectors expected to lose their jobs.

Planners want to remove 100-150 million metric tons of steel to reduce a supply glut. As for coal, a ban on new coal mines is in place for the next three years, while the government aims to cut capacity by 1,000 mt over the plan by closing old mines and consolidating companies. 

Redundancy on that scale won’t be easy, said Hongmei Li, an editor at energy service Platts, who said there was no industry “to accommodate such a huge workforce” amid fears of social unrest. 

The post China five-year plan hints at deeper carbon cuts appeared first on Climate Home News.

(credit: Wikimedia commons)

By Alex Pashley

China will boost emissions-cutting technologies for coal-fired power stations, its environment protection minister said on Friday.

The move was a “revolutionary effort that will overturn the conventional wisdom that coal is not clean,” said Chen Jining in comments paraphrased by state news agency Xinhua.

China would also curb high-polluting bulk coal burned in households, as it bids to cut smog that blankets its cities, he told reporters on the sidelines of a parliamentary session.

It follows the publication of the country’s draft five-year plan, which set ambitious standards for air quality and capped energy consumption for the period 2016-2020.

The world’s leading carbon polluter pledged in December to cut coal power pollution by 60%, in part by upgrading power stations to “ultra low emission” techniques.

Interview: Top lobbyist says coal needs its own ‘Mission Innovation’
Report: China’s Five Year Plan to radically tighten air pollution targets

Burning coal in powder form in high-pressure turbines to remove impurities, or ‘gasify’ it to leave the most carbon-intensive components behind as slag are examples.

Yet campaigners argue coal can never be clean, and is no excuse not to deploy renewable sources like wind and solar.

A Greenpeace investigation in December said nearly half of new clean plants in the country were violating standards as the technology wasn’t always switched on.

Chen said transforming the country’s “energy structure” would take time.

“We will experience a long period of adjusting the energy consumption structure, during which we will promote clean energy, strengthen adjustments to energy consumption and promote clean use of coal,” he said.

China made up a third of all new clean energy investments in 2015 – a 17% year-on-year increase to $110.5 billion – according to a Bloomberg report.

The post China backs ‘revolutionary’ clean coal appeared first on Climate Home News.

Beijing’s air pollution has prompted action to reduce emissions by the Chinese government (Pic: J Aaron Farr/Flickr)

By Alex Pashley

China’s CO2 emissions and coal consumption fell for a second year in 2015, new data by the National Bureau of Statistics indicated on Monday.

The world’s number one polluter emitted 1-2% less CO2 in the period as the cooling Asian economy used 2-4% less coal, according to a Greenpeace analysis of the data. It brings it closer to meeting targets to arrest growth in emissions by 2030.

China also confirmed it broke two clean energy world records in 2015 –installing 32.5 gigawatts (GW) of wind and 18.3 GW of solar power.

“The latest figures confirm China’s record-breaking shift towards renewable power and away from coal,” said Tim Buckley at the US-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

Analysis: Why China’s green shift could face delays
Report: China will “far surpass” 2020 climate target, says top envoy

China is ramping up renewable energy to limit smog-causing pollution from coal-fired power plants and meet climate change commitments.

Declines in coal usage over the last two years equal Japan’s annual consumption. Chinese imports of the polluting fuel fell 30% in 2015 on a year earlier.

China expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in its coal and steel industries, Reuters reported, on reduced demand.

But a “steadily worsening overcapacity problem” in coal power and heavy industry could complicate a shift to cleaner energy sources, warned Greenpeace in a statement.

Yet installations of renewable power will likely continue into 2016.

IEEFA projects China will add a smaller 22GW of wind, 18GW of solar and smaller shares of hydro and nuclear in 2016, which will meet rising electricity demand despite declines in coal usage.

The post China confirms 2015 emissions fall as solar, wind break records appeared first on Climate Home News.

China’s first experimental fast breeder reactor under construction in 2004. (Flickr/ Petr Pavlicek/IAEA)

By Zhang Chun

Efforts to speed carbon cuts pledged under the Paris climate deal will require a fast, mass mobilisation of low carbon technology at costs that can be competitive with coal, a task to which nuclear power will likely be unsuited.

So says a new version of the World Nuclear Energy Industry Status Report, which tracks developments in the sector and provides outlooks based on developments energy and climate policy.

Time is the main enemy of the world nuclear industry, says Mycle Schneider, the author of the report which had its abridged version published in Beijing this week.

“Everyone needs to speed up energy transition, and cheap quick technology is going to be the first choice,” he said, pointing to figures in the report which indicate that 70% of the 60 or so reactors currently worldwide are delayed. Five of these have been listed as “under construction” for over 30 years.

Report: China top officials outline greener five year plan

The 40 reactor units built between 2005 and July 2015 had an average construction time of 9.4 years, suggesting that a fast-roll of the technology in future decades is highly unlikely.

In China, where 18 units are under construction, the average construction time is faster at 5.7 years.

And as nuclear power has already suffered three major accidents (Three Mile Island in the US, Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, and Fukushima in Japan), higher safety demands raise standards for construction and operation, ensuring that the majority of postponements or cancellations of nuclear power plants were due to excessive costs, Schneider adds.

Meanwhile, wind and solar power are being rolled out at a much faster pace. Between the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and 2014, growth in solar and wind capacity outstripped that in nuclear power. Nuclear power peaked in terms of share of energy production in 1996, at 17.6%, falling to 10.8% in 2014.

Report: Nuclear faces tough 2015 as renewables growth soars

Even in China, which is bucking the trend by persisting with plans for nuclear power, the outlook for build-out is looking increasingly uncertain, as nuclear power faces both high costs and fierce competition from other energy sources in the electricity sector.

Wang Yinan, a researcher at the State Council’s Development Research Centre, is opposed to large-scale development of nuclear power, believing the risks involved are too great. The latest technology, known as Generation III+, is unproven in practice, with none of these new reactors yet in operation. To compound the problem, regulatory staff and engineers are not yet up to speed with the new technology, raising concerns about safety.

As Schneider puts it, those capabilities take time to build up – it’s not just a matter of taking a training course in nuclear power. And in a country as densely populated as China, an accident could be catastrophic.

A frenzy of construction in new coal-fired power stations and a rapid expansion of wind and solar power, has placed China’s with an electricity market in surplus. But China has approved new reactors in all of the last six years, with the exception of 2011 when a moratorium was placed after the Fukushima disaster.

Report: ‘Renegade’ UK physicists say they’re on fast track to nuclear fusion 

National Development and Reform Commission plans would see China reach 58 gigawatts (GW) of installed nuclear power generating capacity by 2020. However as only 51 GW of capacity is already in operation or under construction, it is very unlikely this target will be reached, given that length of time it takes to build new nuclear.

However some think that on current trends at least, nuclear power is essential. Lan Ziyong, chief engineer for the China Nuclear Energy Association is one. He outlines two reasons why it is needed. “First, to meet our emissions commitments; second because wind and solar power are not stable enough.”

The future will depend on whether or not technology can keep up with the trends. Yang Fuqiang, Senior Adviser on Climate, Energy and Environment for the Natural Resources Defense Council, says that it would be feasible for nuclear power to provide 10-12% of China’s energy, up from the current 3%.

“If there are new breakthroughs in nuclear technology and current safety concerns are resolved, nuclear power may yet have a longer lifespan,” Yang points out.

This article first appeared on China Dialogue 

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